Believe it or not, European Union is preparing to abolish roaming costs in Europe in just a year and a half days. Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Communications has recently proposed new legislation, already voted by the European Parliament, which imposes elimination of roaming costs starting with the end of 2015 throughout the European Union. The member countries are going to ratify the proposal and a vote given by the European Commission will make it valid, the countries having to complete the ratification process by the end of this year.
Today the European Parliament voted to end roaming charges by December 2015, as part of a wider vote in support for the Commission's legislative package for a "Connected Continent". The regulation also guarantees an open internet for all – so called net neutrality. We succeeded in record time, less than a year since I suggested this regulation. Less than six months after it was sent to Parliament.
After the entry into force of this new legislation, we will no longer have to pay high costs for phone calls made while roaming or surfing the internet in roaming, the term roaming becoming non-existent. In practice, we will be able to call anywhere in Europe at the prices we used to call in Romania outside of our mobile phone network, the internet browsing costs being the local ones.
Orange Romania already offers subscriptions that allow the use of Internet traffic from the subscription in roaming without additional costs, Vodafone has similar options, and Cosmote will come with a similar system.
