European officials agreed on Tuesday to outlaw cellphone roaming charges, beginning in 2017, when people travel across the 28-member bloc. The change is part of long-awaited overhauls aimed at improving how Europeans connect to and use mobile services.
The new rules, which have pitted many of the region’s telecommunications operators against consumer groups, also include so-called net neutrality regulations intended to ensure that Internet service providers and other companies cannot discriminate between different services that run on their data networks.
Policy makers hope the changes will jump-start the use of mobile services in Europe and foster greater economic activity across the region, which in many ways is still divided by national boundaries.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/business/international/eu-roaming-charges-net-neutrality.html [nytimes.com]