Skip to footer

EU ends mobile roaming charges, guarantees net neutrality

The new deal will apply to all 28 European member states, allowing travelers to use text, voice, and data anywhere in the EU.

|
Yves Herman/Reuters/File
The EU has agreed to end mobile roaming charges in all 28 member states
  • By Beatrice Gitau Staff writer

One passport, one currency (for the most part), and soon, no roaming charges.

The European Union has reached an agreement to end roaming charges throughout the EU by June 2017.

This means travelers will send texts, use mobile data, and make mobile calls, without incurring fees for traveling anywhere in the 28 EU nations. The deal also mandates full net neutrality: "all internet traffic will be treated equally."

In other words, every internet user will have access to the online content and services they wish without any discrimination or interference (like blocking or slowing down) from internet service providers. 

"I welcome today's crucial agreement to finally end roaming charges and establish pragmatic net neutrality rules throughout the EU," said Günther Oettinger, EU commissioner for the digital economy and society.

At the moment, consumers traveling outside their home country pay additional fees – up to €0.19 ($0.21) per minute for outgoing calls, €0.06 ($0.07) for outgoing text messages, and €0.20 ($0.22) per megabyte of data. The EU has worked for 10 years to decrease roaming charges, with the result that prices have fallen by more than 80 percent since 2007. 

Under the new deal, roaming charges will be lowered again in April 2016 and abolished by June 2017. Starting next spring, roaming charges will fall to €0.05 ($0.06) per minute for calls, €0.02 ($0.02) per text, and €0.05 ($0.06) per megabyte of data.

A fair-use safeguard protects against gaming the system, like buying a SIM card in a cheaper market to use at home, known as "permanent roaming."

"Europeans have been calling and waiting for the end of roaming charges as well as for net neutrality rules," said Andrus Ansip, EU commission vice-president. "They have been heard."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to EU ends mobile roaming charges, guarantees net neutrality
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2015/0630/EU-ends-mobile-roaming-charges-guarantees-net-neutrality
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe