European Parliament votes for ending roaming charges & net neutrality

European consumers are set to benefit from lower costs and greater choice of online services in the future thanks to a recent vote on the first reading of new draft legislation in the European Parliament. This helps forward the European Commission's much discussed Connected Continent package and will allow the new session of the Parliament (following elections in May) to take the proposals further.

The draft legislation has a number of very significant proposals:

• Much hated by travellers, mobile roaming charges are set to be abolished by the end of 2015 if the legislation is approved by the Council
• Net neutrality is to enjoy greater protection, with more clearly defined constraints on when Traffic Management measures can be taken - throttling the access speed for particular users/applications. This should assist consumers who complain that applications such as Skype and netflix are impeded by some operators
• More licence-exempt spectrum, through enabling dynamic spectrum access

MEPs are particularly aware of mobile roaming charges as they would tend to incur them nearly all the time - unless they happen to be from either Belgium or France, where the parliament buildings are. They are also aware of the growing popularity of over the top services.

 

Source Reuters, Europa.Eu