According to EUobserver, the European Commission acted as moderator between the parties after governments disagreed with the parliament’s proposal to abolish charges by the end of 2015. And in the meantime, roaming will be cheaper too.
Advertisement
Previously, the European Parliament voted to ditch roaming charges across the EU by the end of 2015, but the European Council wanted to delay this move until the end of 2018.
In the meantime, from 2016, roaming fees will be capped at five cents per megabyte for mobile data, five cents per minute for calls and two cents per SMS message, writes Duncan Robinson.
“From April 2016 a phrasing out of roaming charges will commence”. Good job all round.
“Under this agreement, the roaming charges with tax within the European Union are going to be abolished as of 15 June 2017,” Latvia, that holds the rotating EU presidency, said during a statement once 12 hours of talks with European Union lawmakers.
The EU will have the strongest net neutrality rules in the world and these new rules will become a reality across all member states when the text officially applies on 30 April 2016. As per the deal, companies based in the EU region won’t be allowed to block or limit online content, services or applications so that access to the open internet is enabled for all. They have been heard, ‘ claimed Commission vice-president for the digital single market Andrus Ansip of the announcement.
All internet traffic will be treated equally, subject to strict and clearly identified public-interest exceptions such as network security or combating child pornography. Additionally the three parties agreed to implement strong “net neutrality” rules across Europe.
This means access to a start-up’s website won’t be unfairly slowed down to make way for bigger companies, the European Commission said. However, the EU measures will allow telecoms groups to offer faster connections for specialised services, for example, for streamed video.
Advertisement
Top EU digital affairs official Guenther Oettinger welcomed the deal, known as Connected Continent, and announced that it was ” essential for consumers and businesses”.
