EU MOBILE OPERATORS PROTEST AGAINST NEW REDUCTION IN ROAMING CHARGES

EU mobile operators announced that they do not intend to reduce charges for roaming services in spite of the European Commission's ultimatum which expires on 1 July. They qualified the proposed caps on roaming charges as "absurd", Euroactiv announced cited by Dnevnik newspaper.                                                                                             

In February EU Information Society Commissioner Vivian Redding demanded that European mobile operators reduce significantly the roaming charges for data transfer until 1 July and threatened them with prosecution in case they do not comply. The Commission noted that a text message sent to another EU country may cost up to 20 times higher than in the customer's home country. The average price for sending text messages varies from 5 to 10 eurocents across EU countries but customers may be charged more than 50 eurocents if they send an SMS to another EU country. For downloading Internet data the rates are 4 to 6 times higher than the domestic ones.

The Commission intends to take measures against charging conversations per minute which robs customers. The Commission finds it appropriate that the conversation charge is defined per second.

The Commission adopted a directive on roaming regulation within Europe. Since then mobile operators' charges must not exceed 49 eurocents (incl. VAT) per minute for an outgoing call and 24 eurocents (incl. VAT) for receiving a call. The European Commission has also launched a public inquiry among citizens and the business on the effect of the coming into the force of the Directive.
ETNO, the trade association which represents the affected mobile operators, announced that Commission meddling into data roaming tariffs encourages "price fixing" instead of healthy competition in the sector.

A ceiling on text message tariffs is "absurd", said ETNO Director Michael Bartholomew. Alfredo Acebal, director of EU regulatory affairs at Telefonica, asked whether it is the role of the Commission "to put prices on everything".
EU Information Society Commissioner Vivian Redding backed the Commission's position with the following arguments: "What I am asking for are credible, but also doable, price reductions for data roaming by the whole industry on a voluntary basis by 1 July. The EU cannot accept that mobile operators make up to 20 times more profits on roaming than on their domestic customers."