Maltese mobile phone users should see their bills plummet from July if they use their phones abroad.
The European Parliament has endorsed a compromise agreed by the 27 EU member states a few months ago to force mobile phone networks across the EU to cut their roaming charges.
According to EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding it is "the end of rip-offs by mobile operators".
The new EU rules endorsed by the EP will cap the price consumers can be charged for sending a text message while abroad at 11c (excluding VAT), compared to the present average of 28c.
For Maltese customers, the price is even higher as, according to information provided by the Commission, Go Mobile customers are paying an average of 30c when texting from abroad while Vodafone clients pay an average 35c per SMS.
Data roaming charges will also be reduced substantially.
The cost of surfing the web or downloading movies on a mobile phone while abroad will now have a wholesale cap of €1 per megabyte downloaded, compared to an average wholesale price of €1.68 per megabyte in the EU. The wholesale cap will fall to 80c in 2010 and to 50c in 2011.
Consumers will now also be able to protect themselves from "bill shocks" as they will be able to choose a cut-off mechanism once the bill reaches €50, unless the consumer opts for a higher limit. Operators will have until March 2010 to put such transparency measures in place.
The new rules will also further reduce price caps for mobile roaming calls, which have already been regulated through another EU regulation two years ago.
Currently set at 46c for calls made and 22c for calls received abroad, the caps will go down further to 43c for calls made and 19c for calls received abroad as of July 1, 2009, to 39c and 15c from July 1, 2010 and to 35c and 11c from July 1, 2011 (all prices per minute, excluding VAT). Mobile operators will also have to introduce the principle of per-second billing after the first 30 seconds for roamed calls made and from the first second for calls received while abroad.
According to the Commission, consumers are paying about 20 per cent more than the time they actually consume when making or receiving calls while on roaming.