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Mobile broadband roaming rates dropped

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Following the EU’s reiterated deadline of 1 July for all operators to cut roaming costs in the EU, both O2 and T-Mobile have reduced their rates.

Monday, 23 June 2008 by Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

T-Mobile (www.T-Mobile.co.uk) has cut data roaming costs to “just” £1.50 per MB, down from a whopping £7.50. Text messages will drop from 40p per text to 25p per text.

This follows O2's (www.O2.co.uk) announcement last week that it had cut the cost of data usage in European countries to £3 per MB - a saving of 80 per cent for prepay customers and 57 per cent for post-pay customers.

It will also introduce two new data bundles for post-pay customers at £20 for 10MB and £50 for 50MB, which can cut the costs to as little as £1 per MB.

Text messages will be reduced from 49p to 25p for all customers.

According to the GSMA, the global trade body for the mobile industry, Europe-wide roaming charges have already dropped by 25 per cent over the past six months, but Viviane Reding, EU telecoms commissioner, wants rates to drop even further and has threatened providers with regulatory intervention if necessary.

Michael Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, said: “It’s great to see that providers are bringing down the cost of data abroad but at £3 per MB or even £1.50 per MB it’s still costly.

“With a deadline of 1 July for all providers to reduce their roaming rates, I expect the UK’s other mobile broadband providers to make similar adjustments to their prices iver the next week or so,” he added.

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