Consumers on call for 80% cut in roaming fees

AUGUST holidaymakers are set to benefit from dramatic cuts of up to 80% in their roaming mobile phone bills, as EU law makers agree to cap the fees phone companies can charge.

Irish consumers have been paying some of the highest rates in the EU for making and receiving calls abroad.

Under the new legislation, the maximum companies can charge a customer for making a call from another EU country is 49 cent a minute, while the maximum rate for receiving a call is 24 cent a minute.

For Irish phone customers, this will mean a reduction of up to 80% for phoning home and 87.5% for taking a call when in Malta, the most expensive country in Europe to use their Irish-based mobile phone.

The cap is set to fall further over the next two years to 43 and to 19 cent, respectively, bringing charges for making and taking calls closer to the real cost phone companies pay for the use of other companies’ networks.

Up to now, profits of up to 500% were being made on such calls and transactions.

Head of BEUC, the EU-wide consumers organisation, Jim Murray, welcomed the caps but said they were still too high and not linked to the actual costs.

MEP Marian Harkin said: “This signals the beginning of a better deal for consumers throughout Europe, especially those living in border areas.”

The new Eurotariffs will be law before the end of June, after member state’s ministers approve them, but, following objections from the industry and a number of countries, consumers may have to wait up to four weeks before availing of the new charges.

Service providers have four weeks to contact their customers and offer them the opportunity to take up the new tariff. Anybody who has not availed of the new rates by September will be given it automatically — unless they are on a better package.