The executive Commission, which regulates telecoms services in the EU, said despite existing regulations, roaming services in the single market were still not competitive.
It said it wanted to cut the difference between roaming and national tariffs to zero by 2015, and was seeking the views of consumers and businesses on how to reach this target and improve services.
Travellers' data-roaming bills have been automatically limited since July to 50 euros per month to avoid bill shocks - unless they chose higher or lower limits.
In 2009, a German traveller who downloaded a TV programme while roaming in France received a bill exceeding 46,000 euros.
Making a roaming voice call has been capped at 0.39 euro cents per minute excluding value-added tax. Receiving a call while travelling costs a maximum of 0.15 euro cents per minute.
The EU regulator said operators have, however, generally set roaming prices close to the regulated price caps and maintain unjustifiably high margins on roaming services.
"We need to address the source of current problems, namely a lack of competition, and to find a durable solution. But we are keeping an open mind on exactly what solution would work," EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement.
Kroes, who has vowed to crack down on excessive pricing by operators, has said a genuine EU single market should feature price differences between voice, text messages and data only where these are based on the actual cost of providing those services.
The move to curb roaming charges has aggravated mobile phone operators. Several of them, including Britain's Vodafone and Spain's Telefonica, took the European Commission to court over the regulatory moves but lost.
The Commission said the consultation process would identify how far current EU rules on roaming services have worked in practice.
The consultation will run until February next year and will provide a basis for a review of current EU roaming rules, which the Commission will present to the European Parliament and Council by June 2011.
(EurActiv with Reuters.)
