The European Commission announced yesterday new moves intended to protect consumers from building up large bills when roaming in other EU countries. Mobile operators are now obliged to offer their customers a monthly cut-off limit of EUR50, and can also offer any other limit. Users will receive a warning when they hit 80 percent of the chosen limit. Until 1 July, customers need to make a deliberate choice in order to benefit from a cut-off limit. But if they don’t make a choice by July 1, the cut-off will be set at EUR50 by default from that date.

“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,” noted Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes in a statement. The statement added that “thanks to the EU’s roaming rules, the price that operators pay each other per megabyte (MB) downloaded has been limited to a safeguard level of EUR1 per MB, and it will fall over the next two years. These savings should be passed on to consumers and deliver lower prices for surfing the Internet while abroad.”