It has become a time of the month I dread – the arrival of my O2 mobile phone bill. As someone who travels overseas regularly, I am used to big bills but this month’s was a real shocker - £1,500.

Most of my phone use is in Europe. As far as voice calls go, I have seen my bills fall as a result of the Eurotariff – the capped prices you now pay for incoming and outgoing calls thanks to the intervention of the European Commission.

Yet the price of downloading data through my phone remains stubbornly high. On a recent trip to Croatia, I was paying £6 for the privilege of each megabyte of data. A few hours on the internet – necessary for my work and not just mucking about on YouTube – and I had racked up 50 megabytes of downloads.

If you work for a big company, a bill this big might raise a few eyebrows in the finance department but it would probably be waved through. For a sole trader like me, the only thing to do is swallow it.

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Background

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As it happens, when checking the charges on the O2 website after the bill came through I spotted an international data tariff bolt-on that could have saved me money. I had never heard of this particular plan before - mobile networks are notoriously slow at letting customers known about tariffs that will reduce their revenues.

The amount of money data charges raise for network operators is huge - €7bn a year, according to industry body the GSM Association. Yet some relief may be in sight.

Two weeks ago, the European Commissioner for information society and media Viviane Reding demanded that data costs – within Europe at least - should be slashed. Reding spearheaded the introduction of the Eurotariff the networks will know she means business. At a meeting Europe’s telecoms ministers Reding reiterated a deadline of 1 July for action on data charges and said that a number of ministers have spoken in favour of EU intervention. She ended her speech with a warning: “CEOs of all mobile operators: Do your job, respond to consumer concerns and lower your prices. You know exactly where you have to go.”

A cap on data charges would not have helped me on my trip to Croatia – it is not expected to join the EU until 2010. However, if Reding does announce caps next week – and there is every sign she will – at least it is likely to make the thump on my doormat every month a little less heavy.