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Cheaper Calls to come in the European Economic Area

International call costs while you are abroad are more expensive than a standard call because you get charged by two networks, once by the roaming network from the country you are traveling in and once by your home network as well as a profit margin being added. However operators of the roaming networks have agreed to cut charges significantly.

From October 2006 leading mobile phone operators in Europe have agreed to make moves to halve the price of average wholesale roaming tariffs. This is expected to result in a substantial reduction in the retail price of roaming services that allow customers to make and receive calls while traveling in the European Economic Area. The European Economic Area encompasses the EU countries as well as Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

The operators, T-Mobile, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telenor, TeliaSonera and Wind, who collectively represent almost 200 million EU mobile users, have agreed to not raise the average wholesale rates they offer each other providing roaming services at 45 Euro cents per minute starting in October 2006 and lowering that to 36 Euro cents per minute from October 2007. This will lower current wholesale rates by around half.

The retailers commit to passing on the benefits to customers of these wholesale reductions as fully and as quickly as possible through market driven reductions in retail prices. This would result in average retail roaming tariffs i.e the price you pay per minute while roaming in the EEA to drop by around 50 per cent. An independent body will be appointed to audit these reductions, and at six monthly intervals they will publish an index showing trends in retail prices at an EEA-wide level.

It is expected that additional operators in the EEA are to join this code of conduct as all operators have been invited to get involved.

To see how much you could get charged currently when roaming take a look at our International Roaming section, or to find out how to make cheaper calls abroad from the UK with your existing mobile number, take a look at our recent news item titled Cheaper International Calls from Juvino.