Wireless roaming charges will be banned by the European Union starting by 2017. This Tuesday, the European Parliament just approved a bill that will effectively ban wireless companies from charging their customers roaming fees when they travel within any of its 28 member nations.

The roaming charges are the fees that consumers are charged with when they use texting, voice or data services outside of their home networks. These charges can cause mobile phone bills to grow to unbelievable costs that have been drawing ire from consumers for some time now.

The CRTC or Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission have been recently trying to rein in the fees by setting up a cap on the amount that can be charged towards customers travelling between different networks. But this move in Europe takes that one step forward, effectively ordering that with exceptional circumstances, mobile users can now only be required to pay the same amount when they use their devices either at home or abroad.

According to European Parliament member Pilar del Castillo Vera, the roaming costs are set to be totally abolished by July 2017. The law regarding the abolishing of the roaming charges has actually been passed in June but the original law hasn't been amended by the Parliament until this Tuesday.

The roaming charges will have an initial interim capped phase before totally getting eliminated. By April 30, 2016, roaming surcharges that can be added to a consumer's bill must not exceed two euro cents per text, five euro cents per minute for voice, and five euro cents per megabyte of mobile data usage. This new rates will be effective for the 13 months that will follow April and then by June 2017, the complete ban on roaming charges for using mobile phones abroad in EU will be in effect.

There will be a bit of exceptions though. That release said that the law will allow wireless companies to charge a small fee after 2017 for the roaming services if the companies can prove that they cannot recover all of their costs and that it affects domestic prices. If it is indeed the case, companies will be allowed to petition their local wireless regulators in those countries covered to be able to impose minimal fees in exceptional circumstances to cover this costs. The fee however needs to be smaller than what they currently charge their customers.