The ‘3 Like Home’ package allows 3 customers to make and receive calls and texts while abroad using the call bundles designed for their home mobile use. Receiving calls, as in the UK, is free.

Customers have also felt free to chat for longer, 3’s results showed, with the average conversation while abroad rising in duration from one minute and 47 seconds to two minutes and 30 seconds.

However, the ‘3 Like Home’ package applies only to ‘sister networks’ with whom 3 has brokered deals.

The roaming charges to roll out across the EU from this summer, by contrast, will apply to calls made between any two European networks.

European Union parliamentarians were poised to vote on a plan to cap the cost of making calls while abroad to 33p mid-week.

But some commentators are concerned the EU-wide caps will not come into effect before the major rush of holidaymakers abroad this summer.

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