EU to Operators - Reduce roaming costs voluntarily or we will
The European Union’s telecoms chief, Viviane Reding, has told operators that if they do not reduce the cost of SMS cross border messaging and DATA roaming by July 1st, she will introduce measures to do so.Reding insisted the costs of SMS and data roaming were too high and opaque and must come down because consumers are being ripped off. “If there’s not a miracle happening by July 1, I will come up with a regulation” Reding said after a meeting of EU telecoms ministers in Luxembourg.
Costs people pay for making mobile phone calls outside their home countries have dropped by up to 60% since the European Commission capped fees last September, much to the anger of mobile phone operators, who have accused Reding of undue meddling with the market. But the price cap does not cover mobile internet or some 200 billion text messages that are sent a year in western Europe.
Crossing a border within the EU’s 27 nations can hike the costs of sending a text message by up to 25 times, according to a European regulators’ report. The cost of an SMS at home is between five and 10 cent, but the average cost of sending one abroad is 28 cent - one cent less than when Ms Reding first threatened to regulate the prices last year - and can go as high as 50 cents (80 US cents).
Source: PA News
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