European mobile data usage to be capped

From today, unless you contact your service provider before going abroad to an EU country, you may find that there is a cap to how much data you can use with your mobile device.

Once you reach £40 worth of data then you will have to contact the UK operator to have the limited increased, removed or your bill paid up to allow additional data to be switched. Opting out initially is a better idea for the roaming business person who travels within the EU often and who is familiar with the current charges. OFCOM have also issued guidelines to enforce that you are communicated to by a text message at the point when you are 20% from the cut off point.

Call charges have also been aligned that you will never pay more than 33p per minute to make a call, 12p to receive a call and 9p to send a text... all when within the EU. (except Croatia, Turkey and Switzerland)

Contact your operator today to remove the limit if this would be advantagious to you

O2

0800 977 7337

Vodafone
08700 700191

T-Mobile

0845 412 5000

Orange

07973 100 150

Three

0843 373 3333

Cost of calling and using data within the EU has always been the lowest compared to outside of the EU. Therefore it would be great if this ruling was rolled out to the rest of the World but somehow that seems a long way off if never at all. Our tip is to use WiFi as much as possible when abroad (Starbucks is always free) and if you can't then limit the use of data heavy applications like watching YouTube.

Full information from OFCOM can be found here