EU aims to reduce mobile phone ‘bill shocks’

THE E.U. has cut the cost of texting and mobile data services for citizens travelling within the EU. The new EU roaming rules that will now apply include a ‘Euro-SMS tariff’ limiting the price that consumers can be charged for sending a text message while abroad to €0.11 excluding VAT (compared to an average of €0.28 today).

The new rules also reduce the cost of surfing the web or downloading movies with a mobile phone while abroad by introducing a wholesale cap of €1 per MB downloaded.

The new rules aim to protect consumers from ‘bill shocks’ by ensuring they receive an SMS about how much it will cost to surf the net via their mobiles when they roam.

In addition, from March 2010, operators must introduce a cut-off limit mechanism once the bill reaches €50 unless the consumer chooses a different limit offered by the operator), further reduce price caps for mobile roaming calls to €0.43 for calls made abroad and €0.19 for calls received abroad (per minute and excluding VAT), introduce the principle of per-second billing after the first 30 seconds for outgoing calls and after the first second for incoming calls, which is expected to cut bills by as much as 24 per cent.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.