ROAMING CHARGES WILL COME DOWN ONCE AGAIN

12.00.00am GMT Tue 10th Mar 2009

Last night, the European Parliament's Industry Committee voted on whether to extend the current roaming cap on voice calls and also on whether or not to extend the regulation to sms and data charges.

Fiona Hall MEP, Liberal Democrat Industry Spokesperson, said:

"I am disappointed that mobile operators are still fighting 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 aboard. 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."