There is Becky, talking aloud to herself with no control of the roaming voices she says are tormenting her thoughts, her fingers badly bent from diabetes.
That gives unlimited UK voice and texts, with EU roaming for voice and up to 3GB of data.
Under the proposal the cost of roaming on voice calls would drop from 35 cents a minute to 25 cents on July 1 and to 15 cents by 2014.
For example, the agency has been trying to get the large wireless companies to allow customers of other providers to use their networks for data roaming, much as they allow for roaming for voice services.
"This is certainly a significant step forward," said Mr. Burton, who said he most appreciated the voiced reports on battery level, signal status, roaming, new voice-mail messages and missed calls.
International voice and data roaming will be left alone, as will domestic voice roaming.
In 2007, European lawmakers capped the retail prices that operators could charge for mobile voice roaming.
THE FIRST STEP You can keep your existing cellphone number and buy a data package, a voice roaming package or both from most American carriers.
Voice roaming calls, said Monique Goyens, the director general of the Brussels-based group, typically cost three times what consumers pay domestically; data roaming charges can be up to 50 times what consumers pay in their home markets.
In 2009, the European Union mandated a limit to the retail price of roaming charges for voice calls and short text messages, dealing a setback to the Continent's powerful operators, which had unsuccessfully opposed the caps.
