Consumers should benefit from substantially cheaper mobile phone calls when travelling in the EU following a vote in the European Parliament yesterday.
MEPs voted overwhelmingly in favour of a new roaming regulation which will cap the maximum price mobile operators can charge for outgoing and incoming calls.
EU telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding said that consumers should benefit from a reduction in roaming tariffs by up to 70 per cent due to the proposed new "Eurotariff".
"It's a great day for consumers, whether they are tourists or business travellers . . . their telephone bills will melt away," said Ms Reding, who rejected industry complaints that politicians were meddling in the market and indulging in "political price-fixing".
The new regulation caps the maximum price which companies can charge for roaming calls made while travelling within the EU at 49 cent per minute. The cost of receiving a call will fall to a maximum of 24 cent per minute for consumers when the regulation comes into force.
EU officials and parliamentarians said that the regulation should be in place by the end of June following its signing by telecoms ministers.
But many tourists could miss out on the cheaper tariffs for their summer holidays as companies have one month to offer the new tariff.
The roaming regulation is expected to benefit at least 80 per cent of Europe's roaming customers who do not already have special roaming packages.
The remaining 20 per cent of customers on packages such as Vodafone Passport will not automatically be switched over to the new Eurotariff. Instead, the mobile phone operators will have to inform users about the new regulated tariffs. It will then be up to consumers to decide whether to move or not.
Many large mobile phone operators have lobbied hard against the regulation, which they claim could cut profits in a business sector worth more than €8.5 billion a year.
The decision to introduce a regulation on roaming charges follows several years of investigation of the mobile phone sector by the European Commission. It is also part of a drive by European politicians to boost the credibility of the EU among its citizens.