A Belgian woman on vacation in Spain received a bill for €18,889 ($27,119) from her operator for Internet surfing. She was billed at €9.68($13.7) a megabyte. When outside their country, exchange students, back-packers, brides, and bridesmaids on hen parties in Tallinn pay on average ten times for a text message—or SMS—than what they do domestically. The European Commission is proposing to put a stop to this, as it feels that mobile operators are taking advantage of young consumers—the main users of text messaging services. European Union's telecommunications minister plans to put a cap on the wholesale cost of using mobile phones to access the Internet. The fees operators charge each other - that would halve the average cost to €1($1.4) a megabyte from €2($2.8).The new proposal would allow customers to ask that operators cut them off when their data roaming costs reach a designated level. This will sharply cut the roaming fees charged by mobile operators to send short text messages while also reducing the cost of surfing the Internet on a cellphone. Mobile operator Vodafone has warned that in response to a forced reduction in SMS and data roaming prices, they will simply recoup the losses by raising the cost they charge for handsets. This could worsen the situation as frustrations by the fees they must pay to travel the relatively short distances between Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Luxembourg is what brought about this change in the first place.

European Parliament and ministers' council could vote on this plan by the year-end or next year, with the caps taking effect as soon as July 2009. It can cost as low as 25 cents ($0.35) per megabyte to over €16($23) per megabyte for services often used by business travelers.

Source