Matt Brian, The Next Web:
Under new rules, travellers [sic] will be able to select a separate roaming contract from a [foreign] operator before they travel and keep the same number when they arrive in a country, instead of bolting it on top of their existing tariff at home (at inflated prices). The agreement is expected to drive competition between operators and work out more cost-effective for consumers.
As of July 2012, European carriers cannot charge roaming customers more than 0.29 Euros ($0.39) per minute to place a call, 0.08 Euros ($0.11) per minute to receive a call, 0.09 Euros ($0.12) to send a text messages, and 0.70 Euros ($0.93) for every MB of data transfer. Those will be further reduced by July 2014.
Compare those limits with what AT&T charges U.S. per-use customers while roaming in Europe: voice calls often cost $1.50 or greater per minute, $0.50 per text message, and $19.99 per MB of data transfer. That is exactly why I limit my communications to Wi-Fi solutions (email, FaceTime, instant message) when traveling abroad.