New rules to end this holiday rip-off

The cost of using your mobile phone abroad is set to fall dramatically.

The days of people returning from holiday to a shock mobile bill could soon be at an end due to new EU proposals about data roaming.

Data roaming is the term given to accessing the internet on your tablet, smartphone or mobile phone while abroad, but doing so using your UK mobile network.

How much does data roaming cost?

Data roaming is really expensive. Generally, users abroad pay more than £3 (€3.40) per MB – around 50 times more than they do at home.

Unfortunately, in the past some travelers have run up massive bills by using their smartphone abroad because they haven’t understood the charges. In some cases people have downloaded films or TV programmes while overseas, and returned to bills of hundreds or thousands of pounds.

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Charges differ from network to network and price plan to price plan. O2 generally charges £3.07 per MB when roaming in Europe and £6 per MB for the rest of the world. Rival Vodafone charges £1 per MB up to 5MB, then £5 for every additional MB after that in Europe. For the rest of the world they charge £3 per MB up to 5MB, then a whopping £15 for every MB after that.

Browsing the web for an hour will use up about 1.5MB but much more data is used if you start uploading or downloading file. Uploading or downloading a photo will use about 2MB while downloading a music track will use about 3.5MB. If you want to open emails, 20 averaged sized emails will be about 1MB.

Fortunately, there have been rules introduced to stop “bill shock”, and there are new rules on the way that will bring down the cost per MB.

Current rules

Since July last year, mobile users’ data roaming bills while in the EU have been capped at €50 a month, although individuals are free to choose a higher or lower limit. Typically mobile networks send customers a warning when they’re approaching their limit.

Also, the operator has to cut off the mobile internet connection once the limit has been reached, unless the customer has indicated they want to continue data roaming that particular month.

Although rules on caps will stop holidaymakers coming home to eye-watering bills, mobile networks can still charge an extortionate price per MB – so you won’t be able to do much data roaming before reaching the cap.

The new rules

The EU proposals look at the price per MB rather than monthly caps. It wants to more than halve the current maximum charge, so mobile users pay no more than 80p per MB.

It also wants to restructure the market so that roaming services can be offered by companies other than the consumer's mobile phone provider. In theory this would increase competition and lead to further price reductions.

This price cap comes into effect in July 2012. But costs will fall after that too; the EU will further reduce the price cap to 45p per MB from July 2014.

Outside the EU

The proposed new cap only applies if you’re travelling to countries within the EU. If you travel further afield there are still no rules to protect you from enormous bills.

And bear in mind that countries such as Switzerland and Turkey are not in the EU, so be careful.

Orange charges £8 per MB if you data roam in the US. T-Mobile charges £7.50 per MB, O2 £6, Three £3 and Virgin £5. Vodafone charges £5 per day for 25MB.

For that reason, it’s important to check the cost of data roaming before you jet off and, if necessary, switch data roaming off on your phone.

How to cut your bill

There are ways to cut your mobile data roaming bill now, before the new cap comes into effect.

In most cases you’ll be able to save money by adding a data roaming bundle. Orange's "Europe Bundles", for example, offers savings of up to 90% against its standard pay-as-you-go rate.

Some networks will cap your usage wherever you go in the world. O2, for example, will apply a cap no matter where you are in the world – so give your network a call and see what they can do.

Alternatively, to avoid accidently running up large data bills, turn off your data roaming and automatic updates. Smartphone apps (such as weather, news and email) will update automatically, typically every hour. When this happens you are using data. Most smartphones make it quite simple to switch off your roaming and automatic update functions. 

You can still use the internet on your phone by using Wi-Fi – a lot of hotels and cafes will offer customers free Wi-Fi. This will enable you to surf the internet for free.

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