The EU will draft a law that will force mobile phone companies to scrap the "unjustified" high costs customers are charged for using mobile phones while traveling in Europe outside their home countries, an Associated Press report said.
The report, quoting the European Commission, said the draft law could eliminate charges by next summer for receiving a call in another EU country, meaning travelers would be charged the same price they paid at home.
"Europeans are punished with high phone bills simply for crossing a border inside the 25-nation EU, which hurts the growing numbers of people working and traveling outside their home country," the report quoted EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding as saying.
The report said there were no plans to touch rates for calls made or received outside Europe .
Phone companies made some 10 billion euros ($12 billion) a year from roaming charges in the EU, said Peter Rodford, who was in charge of the commission's telecom regulation unit, according to the report.
British carrier Vodafone Group, which operated in several European countries, would not estimate how much it earned from international roaming, the report further said.