After a deal made in early February, citizens residing in EU countries are now one, huge step closer to being virtually free of roaming charges. This is only one of the steps that the EU has planned for years in efforts of eliminating these charges for their citizens.

“Today’s decision is the final step in a process that started ten years ago. ‘Roam like at home’ is now a reality,” said Emmanuel Mallia. Malllia is the digital economy minister for Malta, the country that is currently in charge of the negotiations.

What exactly are roaming charges you may ask? When you travel out of the country and use your cellular data or phone plan to either call, search the internet, or download content while using your home country’s SIM card, that is considered roaming. In order for you to continue using data, your phone company back home works with the foreign country’s company. The operator back home will pay the foreign operator for the use of their networks. The amount paid between the operators is called the wholesale roaming fee. The retail version of these prices end up being a significant chunk of the customer’s final bill.

Since 2007, the EU has been hard at work trying to limit these costs, so that they can lower the prices paid by the consumer. It first started with the “Eurotariff”, which capped maximum fees for calls delivered and received by consumers abroad. These rules have been continuously reviewed and revised, resulting in further reductions throughout the years. Since then, these rules have helped drastically reduce costs for EU citizens who travel abroad often. Since 2007, the EU has achieved retail price reductions across calls by 92%. From 2009 to now, SMS retail prices have been reduced by 92% as well. In 2012, the EU retail price cap became applicable to data roaming, resulting in a 96% price reduction over the years. This has led to EU citizens’ total data roaming to become 100 times larger than at first.

“This progressive decrease in data caps reflects the expectation that increasing use of mobile data services, combined with greater economies of scale, new technologies and effective competition, will reduce the cost of providing wholesale roaming services over the coming years,” the European Council said in a statement.

In October 2015, it was voted in favor that roaming charges for travelling in the EU would be completely eliminated. By June 2017, all European travelers will pay domestic charges regardless of where in the EU they are. Customers will be able to “Roam like at Home”, a vision that will soon become reality.