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Live in the EU? Say goodbye to roaming costs

Thomas Wellburn
July 1, 2015

If you’re holidaying within the European Union come 2017, you’ll be pleased to hear that roaming charges will finally be abolished in all member states.

After some tense negotiations in Luxembourg on Wednesday, the European Union Council has finally decided to impose a further minimum cap on roaming charges within the member states. The cap will affect roaming charges for calls, texts and data.

It was Latvia who spearheaded the campaign and thanks to them, you will now be able to enjoy completely abolished roaming fees from 15 June 2017. Yes, that means we can travel freely within the EU and enjoy the same rates we currently get at home. MEP’s have been trying to kill roaming charges for years and they originally wanted it to happen by 2016.

The ground -breaking legislation was also followed by an agreement on the long debated net neutrality rules, which will ban internet providers from blocking or slowing down access to particular content, services or applications. Users who use high amounts of data will be pleased to hear this, however it opens up opportunities for corporate firms to monetize speed with ‘fast lanes’.

Still, it’s good news for British holiday-makers who enjoy their European retreat destinations. By April 2016, roaming fees will be capped at an additional charge of ‚¬0.05 per minute for calls, ‚¬0.02 for text messages and ‚¬0.05 per MB of data.

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