Roaming charges in Europe to be halved

The average cost of using your smartphone or tablet while abroad in Europe is to be halved under new plans from the EU.

It wants to abolish premium charges for roaming data services as well as extending caps on phone call charges for a further four years to 2016.

This means surfing the internet or receiving calls while you're abroad will cost you no more than 81p per megabyte from July 2012, falling to around 40p by 2014, compared to the average of £1.80 today.

The proposals are part of plans by Neelie Kroes, the EU commissioner responsible for telecommunications, to cut down on roaming charges by 2015.

Last week an EU directive was introduced to force down the cost of making and receiving calls in Europe. It means that the maximum charge will be no more than 32p per minute excluding VAT for calls made while abroad (down from 35p). It will also cost no more than 10p to receive calls while in Europe.

The EU wants the price using your phone at home and abroad to be the same.

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