Mobile phone carriers charge subscribers a much higher rate for roaming calls -- especially calls made from other countries -- than they charge for traditional calls made from the subscriber's home area. These significantly increased roaming charges have often led to subscribers getting massive phone bills in the hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

This is an especially big problem in Europe where traveling through different countries is very common. EU regulators have already announced that they will be stepping in and placing limits on the roaming charges that mobile providers can charge their customers for calls made abroad.

Starting in July, regulators within the EU are capping roaming service prices in Europe at 10p per text and the cost of downloading a megabyte of data will be capped at no more than 92p. Vodafone has announced today that it is taking things one-step further and customers on its Passport service will be able to send texts, pictures and talk from 35 countries for the same price they pay at home.

Telegraph.co.uk reports that Passport customers normally pay a 75p fee to make calls abroad on their regular plans. That fee has now been removed and will not return until August.

Vodafone has 18 million customers in Britain and the company says that if the new roaming plan proves successful it may extend the offer or introduce similar offerings. The elimination of roaming fees is also expected to put significant pressure on other providers to drop exorbitant roaming fees. Vodafone also announced that it was reducing the cost of making international calls from its pay-as-you go phone plans.

Vodafone and Verizon are working together to deploy 4G LTE networks in America and Europe.