EU under fire over mobile fee cap
218998
Plans to limit mobile phone call costs for consumers who travel abroad within Europe are attacked by the industry.
327448
The cost of making mobile phone calls in Europe is set to fall after lawmakers backed plans to cap roaming fees.
22253
(InfoWorld) - While mobile operators claim to be cutting the cost of roaming, their efforts are just a smoke screen and have no appreciable effect on charges overall, a European consumer rights group has said. The lower tariffs are typically available for a limited duration, sometimes requiring payment of an additional subscription fee, and may only be cheaper for long calls made using certain networks, BEUC, the European Consumers' Organisation, said on Tuesday. The fees should be capped at â¬0.33 ($0.43) per minute for customers roaming outside their home country, consumer groups said . Their demand is considerably lower than the cap of â¬0.49 per minuteÂ proposed by the European CommissionÂ in draft legislation that could be voted by June. Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media,Â announced plans last FebruaryÂ to crack down on mobile phone roaming charges, which she said were unreasonably high. On July 12, the Commission proposed cutting by 70 percent the cost of making and receiving calls while travelling in another European Union member state, saving European consumers â¬5 billion a year, according to the Commission's figures. Under the Commission's proposal, operators will be allowed to charge no more than â¬0.16 per minute for calls received while travelling abroad, â¬0.33 per minute for calls made within the country being visited, or â¬0.49 per minute for calls made back home or to a third country while abroad. However, that's still too much for the consumer groups, which called for charges of â¬0.16, â¬0.25 and 0.33 per minute, respectively. The French Consumers' Union (UFC - Que Choisir) called for national telecommunications regulators to collect more information about the volume of incoming, outgoing and local roaming calls, and the wholesale prices charged by operators for each type of call. Without such statistics, it's difficult to measure the effects of tariffs and policies, the group said. Regulators and consumers are dependent on figures provided by the GSM Association, which represents 700 mobile phone operators, the French group said. Those figures showed that the cost of making roaming calls in Europe fell by 25 percent in 2006, from â¬0.83 per minute to â¬0.62, the GSM Association said on Feb. 8. The price decline shows that regulation, especially of the retail market, is unnecessary, the Association said. In the absence of independent measurements of the market, BEUC and UFC - Que Choisir commissioned their own economic analysis in order to determine what they consider fair price caps. Limiting charges to â¬0.33 per minute will stimulate demand, and so have no adverse effect on operators' revenue or profit, they said. Based on mobile phone bills supplied by Members of the European Parliament, they calculated that lower charges could save MEPs an average over â¬1,000 each per year. European telecommunications ministers are expected to discuss the Commission's proposed regulations at informal meetings alongside the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany, next month, while the European Parliament will vote on the proposals in April. Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, has announced its intention to push the legislation on roaming prices through by the end of June, when its term of office ends. Â
339264
After forcing Europe's mobile  operators to cut rates for making and receiving phone calls  abroad, the European Union's top telecoms regulator has set her  sights on prices for downloading and surfing the Web  wirelessly.
608034
The European Union approved a law that will slash the cost of using a mobile phone throughout Europe by around 70 percent.
38410
Mastercard must drop fees it charges for cross-border transactions or face daily fines of 3.5 percent of daily global turnover, European Union regulators said Tuesday.
315606
BARCELONA, Spain  - Mobile phone operators must  act before July 1 to avoid the European Union imposing lower  prices for texting or surfing the Web via mobile phones when  abroad, the bloc's top telecoms regulator said on Monday.
703921
The European Union is talking again with industry leaders about the across-the-board fees in copyright law.
615792
iPhone users have felt the sting of high roaming charges with their devices, and many of them are complaining to the company or on blogs.
681582
European legislators hope that aÂ compromise agreementÂ to cap mobile phone roaming charges will become law before Europeans take their summer holidays. But a network operators' group warned to expect delays because even if the law takes effect as planned July 1, network operators won't have to offer the new tariffs until September.
6880
EU governments agreed to cut the cost of using mobile phones abroad Thursday, paving the way for a cap on roaming fees later this summer.
97748
Mobile phone operators face a new attack on their revenue in Europe after the UK telecoms regulator expressed concern about "extremely high" prices paid by consumers and business people for web surfing on their mobiles while abroad.
363023
Accused of 'twisting the truth' Mobile operators have been accused of "twisting the truth" by a major European consumer lobby group investigating roaming charges.â¦
513679
EU lawmakers endorsed a deal Wednesday to cap mobile phone roaming fees in the 27-nation bloc
190979
Tries to cut down price hurdles Ofcom's chief executive Ed Richards will tell a meeting of European regulators today there is a need to make sharp reductions to the costs of "text roaming" and "data roaming" across Europe.â¦
454948
Just in time for summer hols The EU has given the thumbs up to the Euro tariff for mobile phone roaming.â¦
240529
Italians have reacted angrily to government proposals to bring in a tax on mobile phone text messages.