Students who take their mobile phones on holiday with them may be pleased to hear that the EU is threatening to introduce tough new rules if the current prices for accessing the internet abroad are not lowered.
Mobile phone users who enjoy good mobile phone deals in the UK may still be hit by high costs when they go abroad, with the average Britain abroad paying £4.11 per megabyte when using the internet on their mobile phones.
Viviane Reding, the European Union telecoms commissioner said: "Sending a text message or downloading data in another country should not be substantially more expensive than at home. Higher retail charges abroad must be justified by additional cost of operators or they will have to disappear."
Tom Phillips, head of Government and Regulatory Affairs at the GSM Association, said that accessing the internet and web pages while people are roaming around Europe "can be expensive" but "prices are coming down very quickly".
He added that the "horror" of receiving a big bill after returning from holiday means that many people are put off using their mobile phones abroad.
Meanwhile, a Swedish firm has developed a device which connects a television to mobile phone networks allowing people to send and receive text messages with their televisions.
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Students who take their mobile phones on holiday with them may be pleased to hear that the EU is threatening to introduce tough new rules if the current prices for accessing the internet abroad are not lowered. 
