EU slashes mobile data roaming fees by 55 percent
The European Union says the surcharges for surfing the Internet on mobile devices while traveling across the 28-nation bloc will be more than halved.
The European Commission says the new cap on the so-called roaming fees will be effective starting Tuesday, just in time for the summer holiday travel season.
It said Monday the price cap for one megabyte of data use will be lowered to 20 euro cents (27 dollar cents) from 45 cents—a 55 percent drop. Phone calls and text messaging services across national borders are also getting cheaper by about 25 percent.
The bloc's executive Commission—keen on being seen as helping the EU's 500 million consumers—started cracking down on the fees in 2007 and seeks to abolish them altogether by 2016.
© 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
