I'm getting everyone I want to call onto Skype or Truphone. I won't pay a penny for any calls or messages soon; I already use email instead of MMS (Data: £1 / MB. MMS: 25p / 100kB)

[plug]God bless Nokia, and their amazing E51![/plug]

I've got plenty of free minutes and S/MMS with my reasonably cheap package. I have a friend who's tried the same thing with me - to get me to use Truphone and e-mail on my phone. £7.50 a month extra is quite a lot for me, and I refuse to pay extra for something that will then take up my allowance for when I receive things - particularly if I start receiving spam in my e-mail! Who pays to receive phone calls these days? Why should I? I just don't understand this whole voip on phones and how it's cheaper.

Also, could we please introduce this cap for calling foreign mobile phones in other countries, it's cheaper to video call my partner than voice call her, which is ridiculous.

If they have done so well, how come my roaming cost me 174 quid* in ten days last Christmas? Cos the networks just move the profits. Like now europe has no "exchange rates" (The fab Euro, y'see?) so the card firms and banks just charge "interbank costs". As usual, the EU know sweet phi alpha about how these things work.

(*MY wifi phone is brill - except it doesn't work if there isn't a signal to surf - where I was when I got the business stuff to deal with.)

Everybody that travels around Europe and the rest of the world without using a Mazingo Dual Mode GSM+WiFI VOIP Phone is asking to be fleeced by all the mobile phone operators.

If V. Redding and the EU was serious about saving OUR money they should immediately start using VOIP over a VPN.

I still don't understand why they're allowed to charge extra at all. Having worked with several mobile firms over the years there's no excuse for anything other than a minimal charge, if that. So, well done EU for having done something, but let's got a bit further.

@Beachhutman, if you're talking about taking Euros out of a cash machine, you seem to be several years out of date. I haven't been charged for that since a year after the Euro was created. In fact I understood that banks weren't allowed to charge for that.

The move to reduce voice call rates was great. However, we need to start seeing some serious reductions in EU roaming rates for 3G data. Some of the charges applied are insane and completely unjustifiable.

It's quite damaging to EU business if an EU business person who is travelling around Europe is paying vastly over the odds for data whilst roaming, often tens of times more than a US business person using similar services while roaming within the USA.

In a lot of cases I know people who received enormous roaming bills for their blackberry and as a result no longer use it while abroad. That can't be good for business.

It's also a bit like the WAP charges that were in place when mobile data first launched. These were so ridiculously high that it put people off using mobile data for years and retarded the whole market. It was only when sensible data packages arrived in the last couple of years that mobile data took off.

From what I can see mobile operators are just gouging customers and ripping them off when they step outside their own home market.

@Beachhutman : There are no interbank charges for using your debit card, credit card or making interbank transfers *within* the Eurozone. However, if you use a UK card to withdraw cash / pay for something in the Eurozone charges still apply as you're converting currency. So, for example an Irish card used in France or Germany operates just like it does at home. But, a UK card may incur charges as it's converting back to UK£.

The ECB (European Central Bank) outlawed such charges a few years ago and are in the process of creating the SEPA (Single European Payment Area) to remove any technical barriers that exist. Most of these are already ironed out.

I am highly incensed that I am forced to pay double or more if I receive a call when I am overseas. I pay through the nose, a painful process anyway, and am then expected to pay extra. Often these calls are from marketing companies or are misguided attempts, misdialled attempts or other essays to reach me. Can the European authoroties do nothing to ease this problem? After all, they seem to regulate loads of other things which are, technically, outside their remit. "Extractuim Digitis" Europe and address those problems which are necessary and affect us all.

FRANCIS.

For the countries where it has its own network, Three UK is the ideal data roaming solution. £50 for its HSDPA USB Modem on PAYG. £10 gets you 1GB of data with 3/7GB available at £15/£25. Speed upto 2.8Mbps. The data bundle is valid for 30 days so it's use it or lose it. BUT - you can also use it at no extra cost when roaming in their foreign destinations too (Ireland, Austria, Italy and Hong Kong for PAYG, and the list is longer for contract SIM's).

So for a tenner you get a generous data allowance & enough time in which to use it, with no monthly commitment and a USB modem that "just works" under XP/Vista.

The final bonus? It's a killer backup for your home broadband too. Next time you change provider or the ISP has a major outage ... dig out the sleek wee credit card sized modem, pop it into a USB port on any PC, pay Three a tenner, and you have instant broadband until things are sorted.

I'm just back from using this solution in Italy for the 1st time ... felt great sitting on the terrace, looking at the view while d/l'ing music to listen to off P2P and planning my day trips on the web ... all for £15, and back home now with 2GB spare to use on the Lappy in the UK over the next 3 weeks. I "won't leave home without it" in future, as they say.

One thing to ensure though is to set the connection to 3G only when abroad - to avoid roaming onto a 3rd party GPRS network when out of coverage on Three's own network ... otherwise the out of bundle charge is £3/MB for PAYG!