EU commissioner to cut mobile data costs

Europe’s telecommunications watchdog is about to recommend reductions of up to 90% (that is ninety, yes) in data charges to curb the cost of sending and receiving data while abroad.

The current charges arise from “termination charges” the telecom operators impose to connect to their networks.

In the US there are no termination charges between networks but the receiving caller pays instead. It is rumoured that EU operators will try to adopt this model too.

On July 1^st telecom operators are supposed to have come up with a plan to reduced data and messaging charges across the EU and big cuts are expected to be forced upon them if they don’t cut deep enough voluntarily.

Watch this space for the outcome so that we can actually afford to take our iPhones abroad and use them.