The high price of using smartphones to browse the internet or check emails while abroad in Europe will be slashed under proposals to be announced in Brussels this week.
New caps on data roaming charges, one of the biggest causes of mobile "bill shock", will be set out by the European Union's telecoms commissioner, Neelie Kroes, on Wednesday.
She will say the maximum cost should be 90 euro cents (81p) per megabyte from July next year, falling to 50 cents (45p) by 2014 and to little more than the cost of using the phone at home by 2015. This can be as little as 5 cents (4.5p) per megabyte, but can rise to 2.60 (£2.34) when abroad. The average roaming charge is about 2 per megabyte and the typical smartphone user downloads around 250 megabytes a month.
The dramatic increase in the use of smartphones has resulted in a sharp rise in complaints about unexpectedly large bills after holidays. According to one recent survey, 81 per cent of holidaymakers have received a bill on their return that was up to £100 more than their standard monthly payment. Only six per cent had checked the cost of data roaming per megabyte before they set out.
Ms Kroes is also expected to announce plans "to address the underlying lack of competition" for voice, text and data roaming. The move would allow European travellers to choose a different network when abroad while keeping the same phone and SIM card.
