New EU telecom norms decrease EU wide roaming costs

Roaming costs will drop by up to 60% starting July 1, when the new EU telecom norms will enter into force. The new norms rule, among others, a sharp decrease in roaming services. This month two of the biggest telecom operators, Orange and Vodafone rushed to advertise the price decrease before the EU deadline.

On top of this, Vodafone announced cuts in internet roaming services and Orange followed suite, presenting a new, cheaper option for customers in internet roaming services. Orange Romania launched a new roaming option, available for all users that includes 2MB of data traffic within the EU and Switzerland for an activation fee of 2 euro. Any other extra data costs 2 euro/MB, representing half of the standard roaming data tariff.

Orange will also reduce by 25% the activation fee of Orange Travel Data Monthly to 0.75 euro/MB without VAT while e-mail access on BlackBerry handsets will be cut to half. The announcements made by Orange follow that of Vodafone, which dropped internet costs on June 16.