Roaming charges set to change
26 May 2009
The European Union has long threatened to lower the cost of using your mobile phone abroad. Thankfully this has finally arrived, and savings will come into force in July. What it means for businesses is a radical overhaul of an unpopular and expensive practice.
The biggest savings are to be found on SMS. The retail price cap on this was set at 11 eurocents and once the exchange rate is taken into account β which will be based upon the prevailing rate on 1 June β UK users can not be charged any more than 10 pence. For some, this could mean a reduction of over 65%
Roaming data has not joined SMS, however, in being capped at a retail level. Instead the EU has introduced a wholesale cap. The thinking behind this is that overall retail trend was downward, and capping the wholesale rate would only serve to increase this trend.
What this means is that very little will change in the short term. It is, however, possible that there could be a different charging method β perhaps from a pence-per-Mb tariff to a daily flat-rate charge.
Voice charges will continue to be regulated. It will now no longer cost to receive a voicemail message, and after 30 seconds all calls will be billed per second, rather than the current 30-second incremental charging method.
Alternative Networks customers need not do anything as all charges and changes will be applied automatically. Itβs a great piece of news before holiday season!
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