The new EU roaming rules which are applicable as of 1 July:

- Limit the consumer price for sending a text message while abroad to 0.11 Euro (£0.09) (excl. VAT), compared to a current average 0.28 Euro (£0.23).

- Further reduce prices for mobile roaming calls. As of 1 July, caps are 0.43 Euro (£0.36) for calls made and 0.19 Euro (£0.16) for calls received abroad, falling to 0.39 Euro (£0.33) and 0.15 Euro (£0.12) on 1 July 2010 and to 0.35 Euro (£0.29) and 0.11 Euro (£0.09) on 1 July 2011 (prices per minute, excl. VAT). Until 30 June, the maximum price is 0.46 Euro for calls made and 0.22 Euro for calls received abroad.

- Introduce per-second billing after 30 seconds for roamed calls made and from the first second for calls received abroad. Until now, consumers paid up to 24% more than the time actually used making or receiving calls.

- Reduce the cost of surfing the web and downloading movies or video programs with a mobile phone while abroad with a new wholesale cap of 1 Euro (£0.84) per MB downloaded, compared to an average wholesale price of 1.68 Euro (£1.42) per MB, with peaks in Ireland (6.82 Euro), Greece (5.30 Euro) and Estonia (5.10 Euro).

The wholesale cap for downloading will fall during the next two years: to 0.80 Euro (£0.67) in 2010 and 0.50 Euro (£0.42) in 2011. Consumers will be informed on what they will pay for data services, as the new rules require mobile operators to provide (via an SMS or pop-up window) free, country-specific information on roaming charges to their customers when they enter another Member State and use data services.

- The new rules will also protect consumers from "bill shocks" by introducing a cut-off mechanism once the bill reaches 50 Euro (£42), unless they choose another cut-off limit. Operators have until March 2010 to put this cut-off limit in place.