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The European Parliament has passed a law today that will put a stop to mobile roaming data fees by June 2017. This law was passed as part of a larger legislation, which also wanted to strengthen Net Neutrality laws but unfortunately was left with some major problems that could allow for internet fast lanes- the same ones that the FCC put a stop to in the US earlier in the year.
The ban on roaming charges in Europe will make it illegal for networks to charge you additional fees for calls, texts or data usage across the EU from June 2017. This means that users will just need to pay the same rates they would do in their home country.
Image Source: Wikipedia
Obviously, there is still quite a bit of time before roaming charges are put to rest in Europe, so from April 2016, new charges will be put in to place to keep costs down while the changes are made. On the 30th of April next year, roaming charges will be capped at €0.05 per minute for outgoing calls, €0.02 for texts, and €0.05 for every megabyte of data. The data charge is still pretty high but a year later, these charges will be phased out entirely.
Another important thing to note is that roaming data usage is only free up to a certain point. There is a ‘fair use' clause and once you use a certain amount of data, charges will begin to incur, though we don't know what the fair use limit is at this time.
KitGuru Says: This is a pretty important law to pass as roaming charges have been looked down upon for years now and they have often seemed unfair. Unfortunately, the laws weren't quite as strong as some had hoped, leaving some net neutrality loop holes.
I would rather have net neutrality than this to be honest. I can live with paying a bit extra across the border, but no net neutrality just means consumers are going to get screwed even worse.