News in telephone rates European. From now, 15st May, telecommunications companies will not be able to charge more than 19 cents per minute (plus VAT) for telephone calls between different EU countries. The spending cap applies for both landline and mobile telephony. For sms, on the other hand, the maximum cost cannot exceed i 6 cents.
The new guarantee tariffs are valid in the 28 member countries of the European Union (including Great Britain, regardless of Brexit) plus three other non-EU countries: Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein. Not only that: the maximum prices are valid in any case, when calling an EU number from Italy or while traveling in Europe.
The limits were imposed by Brussels with the new CEuropean Telecommunications Code, which puts an end to nasty surprises on bills for those who need to call telephone numbers in other EU countries.
In this way the Union overcomes a paradox from which the telephone companies have so far taken advantage, imposing reasonable costs for calls between users of the same country and exorbitant prices for calls between community numbers of different countries. A difference that is now unjustifiable, given that communication networks are no longer national, but global.
Not to mention that by now various web services (from Whatsapp to Facebook Messenger, via Microsoft's Skype and Google's Hangout) allow you to make free calls using the internet instead of the telephone network.
The European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel – responsible for the digital economy and society – underlines that these tariffs represent a practical and immediate advantage for citizens in addition to the roaming regime. In fact, the EU Parliament already had abolished roaming charges on mobile telephony in Europe starting from June 2017. For two years, therefore, calls and services from mobile phones in EU countries have had the same cost as applied on the national territory.
