European mobile roaming price cap starts today

Today's move (1st July 2009) follows adoption of the price curbs by the European Parliament in April, which had already been approved by EU telecoms ministers in November last year.

The roaming price will be capped as follow...

• Text from EUR0.29 to EUR0.11.
• Data (per megabyte) from EUR1.68 to EUR1.00 at wholesale level.
• Outgoing voice (per min) from EUR0.46 to EUR0.43, EUR0.39, EUR0.35 (2009, 2010, 2011, respectively)
• Incoming voice (per min) from EUR0.22 to EUR0.19, EUR0.15, EUR0.11 (2009, 2010, 2011, respectively)
• Operators must offer per-second billing after the first half minute for outgoing calls, and
• per-second billing at the begining of calls received.

However, this regulation measure was criticized as unnecessary as the service prices were already falling.

source: GSMA Mobile Business Briefing