EU roaming charges set from today

European Union (EU) legislation to lower roaming charges for mobile phones comes into force today.

The ruling means operators will have to cap prices for calls, texts and web surfing across Europe for the first time.

The maximum charge for a text message has been set at 11 euro cents (9.4p), 43 cents a minute for a call and 1 for transferring 1MB of data.

Viviane Reding, Commissioner for the Information Society and Media in the EU, said in a statement: "From today, all Europeans making calls or sending texts with their mobiles can experience the EU's single market without borders."

"The roaming rip-off is now coming to an end thanks to the determined action of the European Commission, the European Parliament and all 27 EU member states."

Vodafone and 3 both announced yesterday that they would be cutting their roaming costs just before the introduction of the legislation, but now all operators across Europe will be forced to follow the rules.

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.