A several year long debate has finally reached its conclusion in the European Parliament which will make using mobile data abroad the same price as it would be at home.

Roaming Charges

Roaming Charges

It will be some time until this is fully in effect, as the European Parliament has set the deadline for June 2017.

Until that time, there will be a cap on how much telecommunications companies can charge. According to International Business Times, from April 2016 to June 2017, for calls there will be a cap of 0.05 euro (3p) per minute, 0.02 euro (1p) per SMS, and 0.05 euro per megabyte of data.

Some are sceptical about how this will affect the average user, as someone who doesn't make use of roaming data might end up being paying more than before.

Lisa Unden-Farboud, Lead Analyst at Gartner, told IBTimes UK: "The reduction of roaming zones will have an impact on communications service providers' revenues. As a consequence, providers will seek ways to make additional revenue streams in the form of either trimming the value of packages in home markets, or adding new services and applications by which the providers hope to entice their users deeper into longer contracts or make contract exits more challenging."