Making phone calls from your mobile, or even receiving calls, while abroad has always been a bit of a guessing game, having little clue what your monthly bill will look like when returning back home. However, from today onwards, mobile operators must offer EU subscribers tariffs of no more than 49 euro cents (66 US cents) a minute for cross-border calls within the 27-nation bloc, while receiving a call should cost no more than 24 cents.

The EU commission made it clear that they would not hesitate to name and shame companies who do not comply by the September 1st deadline, enabling users to lodge complaints with the national authorities.

“Also under the new rules, when a customer enters another EU country the subscriber will receive a text message saying what rate their operator applies there.”

This is the best news to come out of the rule changes – Enter a new country and rates will be presented to you in a clear manner that allows you to count exactly how much cash you’re burning when your mother in law phones while you’re roasting yourself on the Costa Del Sol.

All in all, a positive step for consumers. We can go back to spending our money on cheap local booze instead of saving up to pay the dreaded phone bill when we get back home!

[AFP on Yahoo, via Emily at textually]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 at 1:25 pm and is filed under On the Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.