EU caps mobile data roaming charges from July 2009

Viviane Reding, the EU's Telecoms Commissioner has announced that from July 2009 new rules will come into force capping data charges for mobile phone users when they travel to another EU country. Ms Reding said that these new rules are "very good news for consumers".

Wholesale prices of data will be capped at €0.50 per megabyte. Currently, the average retail price is around €4 per megabyte.

Although the mobile operators don't like these new rules, lower prices should help to increase mobile-web usage. I believe that high data charges have hampered the growth of the mobile-web, so I think these new EU regulations are great news for us, because they'll encourage more travellers to use the mobile-web version of our StreamThru mobile travel assistance service!