Websites give consumers the chance to check the cost of using their mobile phones abroad, writes Laura Slattery.

Mobile roaming charges have long been a bugbear for the kind of frequent fliers who would need to have their handsets surgically removed from their person before they would consider losing telecommunications contact with their friends and colleagues.

Earlier this week, the communications regulator (ComReg) warned that consumers are not fully aware of the cost of using mobile phones abroad, citing a survey that found that 77 per cent of users who travelled abroad last year had little or no knowledge of the price they pay for making and receiving calls overseas.

ComReg has launched a website that shows roaming costs for Vodafone,O2, Meteor and 3 Ireland customers when they are travelling in the UK, Spain, Portugal and Italy - four typical European holiday destinations.

A spokesman for ComReg says it plans to add roaming charges for the US and Germany to the website over the next few months, with the latter country chosen for the benefit of travelling football fans undeterred by Ireland's failure to qualify for this summer's World Cup.

The site has been established as part of a European Commission initiative aiming to make roaming costs more transparent.

The commission believes that consumers pay "unreasonably high" prices for using their mobile phones abroad, and as the costs reduce cross-border use of mobiles, they are hampering the European market for electronic communications.

The commission's own website shows sample tariffs for Irish mobile customers roaming in France, Italy, Malta and Finland.

Ultimately, the commission wants to regulate international roaming charges and has indicated that legislation could be in place by the second half of 2007.

This could involve imposing price caps in a bid to contain and regularise roaming costs.

"We would welcome and support what the European Commission is trying to do," says the ComReg spokesman.

Irish consumers could see certain roaming costs fall in the meantime, however.

Vodafone this week announced that it is to eliminate roaming charges for all bill paying customers travelling to the UK from next Tuesday - users will simply pay the same for calls as they would at home - while call connection charges for prepaid customers will be reduced.

To avail of the new rates, customers must sign up to Vodafone Passport by texting "subroam" to 50020 or by calling its customer care line. For countries other than the UK, Vodafone Passport customers pay a connection charge of 79c and then the same per minute call rate that they do at home, so when they are receiving calls, the price is simply 79c.

The table above shows how much Vodafone customers are currently paying.

The cost of making a four-minute peak-time voice call to Ireland from the UK for pay monthly customers is at best either €2.36 or €2.19 if they have signed up to Vodafone Passport.

From March 14th, those who sign up to Vodafone Passport will only pay €1.40 for the same call, compared to a minimum of €1.96 for 3 Ireland customers, €2.36 for O2 customers and €2.88 for Meteor customers.

Last month, O2 Ireland dropped its roaming charges for customers using its network in Northern Ireland and also eliminated them for business customers travelling to the UK.

Both the Vodafone and O2 Ireland moves, described as "long overdue" by Fine Gael spokesman on communications Bernard Durkan, will end the problem of inadvertent roaming for Republic of Ireland customers in the Border counties.

Mobile users in these areas were frequently bumped onto the UK networks and incurred cross-Border roaming charges, often without realising it.

For people travelling further afield than the UK, the main way to reduce the cost of making and receiving calls is to make sure that they are roaming on their operator's "preferred" network.

Once they emerge from the airport arrivals floor, blinking into the continental sunlight, the first step that consumers should take is to switch their mobile network selection from automatic to manual and choose their operator's roaming partner.

On a Nokia phone, this can be done by clicking on the "settings" menu, then by selecting "phone settings" and "network selection".

As the result of an agreement between the home and foreign operator, the preferred roaming partner will be the cheapest overseas network on which to roam.

Ideally, consumers should check which network is the preferred partner on their home operator's website or on the ComReg website before travelling.

The preferred network may pop up automatically once the phone is switched on, but travellers may later find that their phone hops from network to network, as their signal is picked up by different sources.

Market newcomer 3 Ireland charges the same rate, no matter which network their customers end up on, but the cost of roaming on the wrong network can be substantial for other mobile users.

For example, if a pay monthly Meteor customer skiing down the side of a mountain in Italy makes a four-minute call back to Ireland while on the Italian WIND network, they will pay €4.52 for the privilege.

However, if they are roaming on Italy's Omnitel network at the time, the call will cost them €5.36 - and a few broken bones if they're not careful.

ComReg's website, which it promises to update regularly, shows the cost of peak-time calls lasting 30 seconds and four minutes, as well as the cost of sending text messages. It includes the tariffs for both prepay users and bill-paying customers.

The cost of making the equivalent calls in Ireland is also shown on its website, so that consumers can work out exactly how much extra they are being charged for using their mobiles while arranging property deals in Spain, playing golf in Portugal or on the Da Vinci trail in Italy.

ComReg's website is at www.askcomreg.ie/roaming

The European Commission's roaming website can be found at http://europa.eu.int/information_society/roaming