With effect 2 July 2010, EU Roaming Regulation updates of 2009 now provide the travelling mobile phone user protection. The Regulations make mobile phone usage more cost friendly for citizens travelling within the EU.

Several features of the Regulation obligate operators to conduct certain measures.

These are:

·         When the monthly data-roaming bill reaches €50, the operator must suspend internet access to the customer unless an explicit agreement to a higher limit exists between the parties.

·         The operator must send usage alerts to its customer once the customer has reached 80% of the €50 limit, or, agreed, higher limit.

·         The maximum wholesale price of downloading/uploading data is reduced from €1 to €0.80 per megabyte.

·         The maximum price of making a call is reduced from €0.43 to €0.39 per minute (Ex VAT).

·         The maximum price of receiving a call is reduced from €0.19 to €0.15 per minute (Ex VAT).

·         Consumers are not to be charged for receiving a voice mail.

Things which remain the same include the text messaging price (a maximum of €0.11) and the use, by the operators, of per second billing after the first 30 seconds of a call made and the duration of those received.

These latest regulations seem to represent a pro-active attitude within the EU to solve the problems faced by citizens in this evolutionary period of mobile telecommunications.