Mobile Phone Charges Set to Drop As Ofcom Orders Cuts
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By Alastair Jamieson Consumer Affairs Correspondent  PRICE cuts could be on the way for mobile phone customers after the telecoms watchdog ordered more restrictions on call charges and promised to investigate the cost of text messaging.
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Verizon and Sprint wireless customers will get a small break on their bills soon. The companies have decided to eliminate or reduce a 40-cent-per-line monthly charge imposed to allow customers
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Extended family scheme 'abused' T-Mobile UK has suspended its half-price employee line rental benefit package following reports of abuse. The mobile operator's Friends and Relations scheme offered line rentals at half the normal rate providing qualified recipients signed up to an 18-month contract.â¦
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NEW YORK -- The nation's second- and third-largest cellphone carriers are lowering controversial surcharges on customer bills that have brought them over $250 million this year.
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The cost of making mobile phone calls in Europe is set to fall after lawmakers backed plans to cap roaming fees.
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Verizon and Sprint wireless customers will get a small break on their bills soon. The companies have decided to eliminate or reduce a 40-cent-per-line monthly charge imposed to allow customers to transfer their phone numbers to new carriers.
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Cheap telephone calls made using broadband internet connections came a step closer yesterday when Ofcom, the industry regulator, laid out its plans to help the take-up of the new technology.
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Vodafone says some UK users have been temporarily cut off after a text message service upgrade went wrong.
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Subsidy cuts Exclusive O2 will aim to break the mobile phone upgrade cycle with a new group of tariffs which will be cheaper than pay-as-you-talk and monthly contract offerings.â¦
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Proposal could slash call costs by a third The European Commission has called on Ofcom to discount the massive costs paid by operators for 3G phone licences when calculating call costs. The proposal could cut mobile call charges by up to a third.â¦
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Plans to limit mobile phone call costs for consumers who travel abroad within Europe are attacked by the industry.
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Vodafone said today it remained keen on purchases in France, eastern Europe and Asia and Africa as it detailed annual cost cuts expected to reach Â£2.
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Despite a fierce lobbying campaign by the telecoms industry, the European Commission is poised to force operators to slash the cost of mobile phone calls while abroad, officials say.
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The UK could face a new 3G licence auction after Ofcom on Thursday announced plans to take some of the radio spectrum held by mobile phone operators Vodafone and  O2, and use it for higher speed services.
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BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Commission said Wednesday it had dropped its antitrust investigation into mobile phone roaming prices charged by operators in Britain and Germany after new EU rules forcing telecom companies to cut the cost of using mobile phones abroad.
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Consumer group Which? warns against buying 3G handsets in the UK due to a limited network.
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(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