Chatting abroad will now become much cheaper

New, lower charges for roaming must be published by 30 July at the latest.

It is the culmination of a campaign by the European Commission to bring down the high price of making cross-border mobile phone calls in Europe.

The maximum cost of making a call has been set at 33 pence per minute plus VAT, while the maximum cost of receiving a call will be 16p plus VAT.

The maximum cost in euros would be 49 euro cents for making calls, and 24 euro cents for receiving them.

New regulations on roaming charges - the cost of making or receiving a call while abroad - became law in all 27 EU member states on Monday.

They apply only to voice calls, not text messages.

"At last Europeans can breathe a sigh of relief as the EU roaming regulation finally becomes binding law across all member states," said the EU's telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding.

"We hope we've now seen the last of excessive roaming charges," she added.

Any customers who do not sign up for a so-called Eurotariff will automatically be put on one from 30 September, unless they are already on another special roaming deal from their mobile phone operator.

"Fantasy costs"

In some cases they will see the cost of making calls abroad fall by 75%.

The Commission's campaign against current roaming charges started in October 2005 and has succeeded despite vociferous opposition and lobbying from the mobile phone operators.

Back then, Viviane Reding denounced the existing roaming charges as "fantasy costs" which penalised people for using their phones while travelling abroad.

Roaming charges have, until now, provided some operators with as much as 20% of their total income

The Commission argued that not only were the charges unreasonably high but that phone users frequently had no idea what they were paying until they got home and received an unexpectedly large bill.