Brussels has just voted to abolish roaming charges for all mobile phone operators as from the end of next year. The Council of Ministers has agreed the change, which in theory will be implemented on the 15th Dec 2015.
Operators will be forced to negotiate flat fee tariffs amongst themselves throughout the EU, and won’t be allowed to charge extra for non-national subscribers as they travel around Europe.
Nor will the cheeky little telcos be allowed to block rival operators, or software programs such as WhatsApp from their networks.
The legislation will now be sent to the European Parliament for final voting before being distributed to the national countries for implementation. The timeline may slip a bit – the telcos are doing all they can to make sure it does – but the legislation will, eventually, be passed.