Negotiators from the European Parliament and the European Union member states reached on Tuesday a tentative deal on roaming fee caps for mobile phone operators.

Under the deal, charges for making a call when in another EU member state would be no more than 0.49 euro per minute during the first year of application, while for receiving a call outside home country the cap was set at 0.24 euro per minute.

The ceiling for roaming fee would go further down in the second year, at 0.46 euro for making calls when abroad and 0.22 euro for receiving calls. The caps would be 0.43 euro and 0.19 euro respectively in the third year. Then the price ceilings would be lifted by 2009.

"We have decided to have a sunset clause. After three years this arrangement will come to an end," Paul Ruebig, a center-right lawmaker, told reporters after the preliminary deal came out of weeks-long negotiations earlier Tuesday.

The compromised deal also requires mobile phone operators to offer the new caps to all customers and switch them to the new price automatically, unless they opt out for other beneficial packages.

The European Commission drew up the plan last year to cut transnational roaming charges by as much as 70 percent for the benefit of mobile phone users within the EU. Its earlier study found that the prices for roaming calls could vary substantially from different operators, with the highest at three euros per minute.

Germany, which is holding the EU presidency, had pushed for roaming fee caps of 0.60 euro to make a call, and 0.30 euro to receive one, which were higher than the respective caps of 0.40 euro and 0.15 euro originally sought by the European Parliament.

The deal still needs approval of the European Parliament and member states, which was expected to come into effect this summer if passed.

Source: Xinhua