EC pushing for more roaming cuts

EU telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding is pushing for greater transparency in billing and costs

The European Commission is pushing for fresh cuts to roaming charges, proposing to drop the cost of text messages and data services by as much as 60 per cent by July 2009.

The Commission wants to increase the use of mobile data services across its borders, and sees price cuts as the best way to achieve this goal.

EU telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding is pushing for greater transparency in billing and costs, and protection against "bill shocks", or unexpectedly large phone bills.

"Using your mobile phone abroad in the EU should not cost unjustifiably more than at home, whether for making calls, sending texts or surfing the web," said Reding at the announcement of the new proposals.

"Europe's 37 million tourists and 110 million business travellers are waiting for the promise of the borderless single market to finally have a positive impact on their phone bills."

To achieve this the Commission wants to see a number of consumer protection initiatives in place.

When individuals enter a new country they should be advised automatically of local and roaming charges, according to the proposals, with a suggested price cap of €0.11 (9p) on text messages instead of the current average of €0.29 (23p).

The Commission added that, by the summer of 2010, users should be able to set a personal limit on charges and be notified when they break this threshold.

To further lessen costs the proposals suggest that mobile operators should charge users by the second and not the minute, a pricing policy that it considers much fairer to the end user.

EU consumer affairs commissioner Meglena Kuneva added: "Today, consumers are overcharged by 24 per cent on average for mobile calls they make abroad as roaming calls are very often charged not by the second, but by the minute.

"A priority for us is fair treatment of consumers when they cross a border and this is why the Commission decided today to introduce the principle of per-second billing for all roaming calls."