As of yesterday, mobile telephone operators are required to limit consumer spending on roaming services while abroad, obliging them to cut off customers' connections once their use has reached an agreed ceiling.
The regulation, originally introduced in 2009, obliges operators to agree a fixed limit on customers' contracts in order to prevent "bill shocks".
A German customer reportedly faced a €46,000 bill for downloading a TV series on his laptop while abroad and a UK student also was charged €9,000 in one single month of roaming.
The lowest cut-off point under the new EU rules is €50, but operators can offer their customers more than that as long as the user is aware of it. Under the rules, customers will also have to receive a message once they have reached 80% of their chosen limit.
Those who have not come to an agreement will have to live with a €50 default ceiling, according to a statement from the EU executive.
The ceiling only affects European customers travelling in other EU countries and not those travelling outside the bloc. Foreigners travelling to Europe are not concerned either.
"Protection against data roaming bill shocks is a useful step towards building customers confidence to use mobile networks to surf the Internet when travelling around Europe," the EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement.
The executive also warned that the progress of the new roaming rules would be closely watched, with an interim report scheduled for June this year. A review is scheduled for July 2011.
