Mobile operators announce cuts in roaming charges

THE Cyprus Telecommunications Authority CyTA has begun sending out its new roaming rates in line with an EU regulation designed to streamline and reduce charges for EU citizens.
Private competitor Areeba also sent out a statement yesterday with its new roaming charges.
CyTA has been informing customers of its new rates by text message over the past few days. It said that as of August 30 new roaming rates for domestic calls within an EU country other than Cyprus would be 20.7 cents per minute, while overseas calls to other EU countries from outside Cyprus would be 32.9 cents per minute. The cost of receiving calls while abroad in the EU would be 14.5 cents per minute, CyTA said.

Areeba has fixed a standard charge for both making and receiving calls.
It said all outgoing calls to European member states would be charged at 28 cents per minute. This applies to calls made to fixed and mobile networks within the visited country, calls to Cyprus and calls to other networks within the EU.

Receiving calls using areeba will be charged 14 cents per minute. The areeba charges do not include VAT. Currently, any incoming calls to a roaming areeba customer are charged the same as if the customer was in Cyprus making an international call to that country. Calling Cyprus from the UK on an areeba phone using the Orange or T-Mobile networks currently costs 66 cents per minute. Roaming calls from Greece to Cyprus are 46 cents per minute.
Using a CyTA phone on the Vodafone network in the UK currently costs 45 cents per minute for an outgoing call to Cyprus, with calls using other networks in the UK charged at 64 cents a minute.

Receiving a call on a CyTA mobile while in the UK currently costs 12.6 cents per minute.
From 15 other EU countries, including France, Germany, Spain and Italy, Vodafone partner networks currently charge 48 cents for an outgoing call to Cyprus, with that figure rising to 78 cents for countries such as Belgium, Bulgaria, Malta and the Netherlands.
The changes are the result of a European Commission regulation on roaming charges, which becomes law by the end of next month.

The European Commission had proposed a reduction in mobile roaming charges within the EU by up to 70 per cent. The Commission said that despite repeated calls to mobile operators, using mobile phones in other EU countries remained on average four times more expensive than domestic mobile phone calls – up to 12 euros for a four-minute call.

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