Posted: 15th Jan, 2008 By: MarkJ
Telefónica, O2 UK's parent company, has announced a huge cut to the cost of accessing the Internet (data) from your mobile phone while abroad in Europe:
Consumers in Spain, the UK, Germany, the Czech Republic and Ireland will benefit from cuts of more than 40% in data roaming prices, while the cost of sending a text message home from anywhere in the European Union falls to a maximum of 0.32 + VAT. For business travellers who wish to stay connected while abroad, a new roaming bundle provides worldwide access to data at a price equivalent to 1 per megabyte (MB). These changes form an important part of the companys continuing drive to increase the transparency and simplicity of mobile charges.
For comparisons sake, current O2 UK contract customers pay between £6 and £7 (depending on country) for a single megabyte (MB) of data. Pre-Pay (pay-as-you-go) users had to pay considerably more, tipping the scales at £15 for 1MB.
The new pricing means that both groups should now be charged £3 per megabyte, while a data bundle of 50MB will set you back £35 per month. Naturally this is still extremely expensive by comparison to UK '
Mobile Broadband' (3G) prices but roaming charges have always been a lot more difficult to balance out due to the different networks involved.