The EU agrees to end the roaming rip-off - Hoofdinhoud

You may have seen that the EU recently agreed on a new proposal to put an end to mobile roaming rip-offs.

Here’s a short video of me celebrating this great news:

You can also see the video in Dutch/Nederlands here.

And here’s a full transcript for ease:

“Great news: this new deal puts an end to roaming rip-offs. This is really great news for anyone who’s been stung by high charges when using a mobile abroad.

For the first time ever, there will be new consumer rules for mobile data - so you can browse the web abroad with confidence.

And most importantly, for the first time ever, we will open the market to competition. Because competition is the best guarantee of long-term, low prices.

Users will see dramatic price cuts in time for the summer holidays: and prices will continue to tumble until 2014.

So, how does it work?

From 2014, you can shop around and sign up for the mobile roaming contract that suits you best. Each time you cross a border, your phone will automatically switch to that provider, without changing your number.

In the meantime, retail price caps will keep the cost of roaming down. By 2014 the maximum cost of downloading data will be just 20 cents a Megabyte; before my proposal it was often over ten times that. By 2014, sending a text message will cost no more than 6 cents.

These new caps are a safety net for the consumer - while also leaving room for competition to develop. And in the longer term, competition will deliver cheaper prices, significantly below the safeguard caps.

And for data we shall have new smart solutions to make it easy to browse abroad. From 2014, you can either sign up in advance to a roaming contract which includes mobile data. Or you can pick one when you arrive at your destination: just as simply as you’d select a WiFi provider.

And no more nasty shocks when you open your bill. When you travel outside the EU, you will get a warning if your data bill is getting too high. So you can get it switched off—before you rack up an unexpected and unwelcome bill.”