Four years ago my wife and I visited Greece for a week. We purchased one of the all-inclusive travel packages on offer. All-inclusive, however, did not include my wife’s telephone calls to her mother in Poland. Nor my calls back to the office. A few weeks after returning home, the true cost of our all-inclusive vacation arrived in the mail … in the form of a telephone bill. At the time our carrier in Poland charged us a roaming fee of €1.32 per minute to use our mobile phone in Greece. Without giving away the total, let’s just say that we learned our lesson regarding roaming charges. And apparently we were not alone. In 2007 the European Parliament and Council adopted a regulation (EC Regulation 717/2007) to cap roaming charges within the EU following consumer complaints.

EC Regulation 717/2007

At the time of its adoption on June 27, 2007 by the European Parliament, the authors of the Roaming Regulation cited the need to create a European social, educational and cultural area based on the mobility of individuals. The lowering of roaming charges is intended to achieve this goal by facilitating communication between people across the EU. The Roaming Regulation sets a cap on the amount a carrier may charge a mobile phone user to place a call from another EU member state, as well as surfing the internet and sending and receiving text messages. The first caps took effect in 2009, with further reductions introduced in 2010 and more scheduled to take effect in mid-2011.

When the final caps take effect later this summer, the surcharge to place a call outside of your network will be limited to E0.35 per minute, while the cost to receive a call will be limited to E0.11 per minute. The cost to send an SMS will be limited to €0.11, regardless of the length of the text message. Receiving a SMS is currently free-of-charge and will remain so. Receiving voicemail messages while travelling is also free. On average, roaming charges have fallen 73 percent since the European Parliament and Council first took up the issue of roaming charges in 2005.

To avoid unexpected surprises, the Roaming Regulation also introduces a default cut-off for surfing the internet while traveling within the EU. As of now the monthly roaming charge to surf the internet while traveling outside a user’s network is automatically capped at €50.

Unless the user has agreed to a higher limit, internet access will be blocked once the internet access charges reach €50 in a given month while traveling. Moreover, a network operator is now required to send a warning to a user once he or she reaches 80 percent of his or her roaming charge limit.

Polish regulator

Poland’s telecom regulator, the Office of Electronic Communications, is charged with enforcement of the Roaming Regulation in Poland. In addition to enforcement of the new lower roaming charges, the Office of Electronic Communications is currently working on a plan to reduce the cost of mobile phone calls within Poland. At present the Polish Regulator proposes to lower the tariff for mobile phone use to zł.0.1223 by 2012, which is in line with the EU Commission’s recommended rate of no more than E0.03 per minute by 2012.

Polish operators

In comparison to the charge of €1.32 per minute we paid to use our mobile phone while in Greece in 2006, today the same call would cost €0.39, a reduction of 70 percent. As of this summer the rate will fall another 10 percent to €0.35 per minute.

Calls outside the EU

The Roaming Regulation caps roaming charges in the EU. Not elsewhere. Each year I am reminded of this when we visit my parents in the States and my wife again calls her mother back in Poland. But hope springs eternal and this past summer I discovered Skype, the free-of-charge voice over internet service to make long-distance calls to and from just about anywhere.

Paul Fogo is a senior attorney with Miller, Canfield, W. Babicki, A. Chelchowski & Partners. fogo@pl.millercanfield.com