Roaming Charges will come down once again- Lynne

10.37.42am GMT Wed 11th Mar 2009

West Midlands LibDem Euro MP Liz Lynne has today welcomed the European Parliament's Industry Committee's decision to extend the current roaming cap on voice calls to sms and data charges.

The decision will mean a cap on the amount operators can charge people from the UK who make calls, texts or use wi-fi internet while in another EU country. Charges on voice calls have already been capped but the Committee's decision means that these regulations will be extended until at least 2012.

Liz Lynne, who has campaigned for lower roaming charges for people traveling in other European countries, said:

"I am pleased the Industry Committee has decided to take action to help reduce the prices people pay when traveling abroad.

"I am disappointed that mobile operators have fought these cost caps. In 2006, they were warned about the cost of roaming voice calls but failed to bring the charges down until MEPs forced them to. Similarly, they were warned about excessive text and data charges to no avail. So now it is time to act again to slash the cost of using a mobile abroad.

"For UK consumers, the cost of sending a text message when abroad often is as high as 41p per text. Compared with just 4p with a Latvian mobile phone user, this is scandalous. This report means that UK operators will be able to charge no more than 9p for a text message sent whilst in another European Union member State. The actual cost to the operator is less than 1p.

"The new regulation on data charges will put a stop to the nasty shocks that people have received when they return from holiday, open their bills and see they have been charged a small fortune for simply checking the football scores on their mobiles. As well as lower charges for data, mobile companies must now offer cut off limits to stop the danger of charges silently mounting up. Once again, action at an EU level has greatly benefited the consumer."