After the end of roaming charges in June 2017, the new ceilings on the prices of international telephone calls and SMS messages in the European Union will apply from Wednesday 15 May.
From their usual country of residence, consumers will pay a maximum of 19 cents (+ VAT) per minute for a call made from a fixed or mobile phone to another EU country, and a maximum of 6 cents (+ VAT) per SMS message. These rules, which will also apply in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein once they have been incorporated into the Agreement on the European Economic Area, will not apply to business customers, who can already benefit from attractive offers for these services.
When a consumer benefits from a bundled offer comprising a fixed volume of international calls and/or SMS messages in the EU for a fixed price, the price cap is not directly applicable. However, they will be free to switch to a per-minute rate, if required, at no additional charge.
These ceilings had been introduced at the request of the European Parliament during the reform of the Electronic Communications Code and the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), which had been completed in June 2018 (see EUROPE 12035/6). In exceptional circumstances, they will not apply to operators specialising in international calls or who have a very low profit margin on domestic prices.
This measure will make it possible to reduce prices, which are on average three times higher than that of a national call and more than twice as high as that of a national SMS, the Commission notes in a press release.
Operators will have to inform their customers of the new tariffs. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)