MEPs vote to slash the price of mobile roaming
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On average, Europeans currently pay 29 cents a message when abroad (Photo: Wikipedia)
Deputies in the industry committee of the European Parliament have backed a reduction in the cost of sending text messages and making mobile telephone calls when outside their country but still within the EU - a practice known as ‘roaming'.
Beyond their borders, consumers pay on average ten times for sending a text message - or SMS - what they do domestically.
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The MEPs on Monday (9 March) voted 21 to eight to limit the cost of texting from abroad at €0.11 from July this year.
On average, Europeans currently pay 29 cents a message when abroad, according to figures from European telecoms regulators, a cost that can soon add up.
Those living in Belgium, have been victims of what information society commissioner Viviane Reding, who proposed the legislation, calls "bill shock" when they come home from their holidays and open the mail, as Belgian operators are the most expensive in the bloc, charging as much as 80 cents for a foreign SMS.
On Monday, the deputies also voted to reduce the upper limit of what companies can charge for making a call while ‘roaming' from €0.46 down to €0.40 as of June 2010. The top charge for receiving a call while roaming is also to be reduced to €0.16 down from €0.22.
However, the committee rejected all proposals to further reduce these price ceilings from 2011 onwards. The commission had proposed that the retail price caps be steadily reduced to €0.37 per minute for outgoing calls and €0.13 per minute for incoming ones from July 2011 and to €0.34 per minute and €0.10 per minute from July 2012.
The MEPs voted in favour of lifting the price caps in June 2012, while the commission had proposed an extension of the caps until mid-2013.
Additionally, the committee backed a requirement that mobile operators introduce per-second billing from the very first second of a mobile call made or received abroad, while the commission had originally suggested per-second billing kick in only after the 31st second.
Prices for data roaming services - such as sending an email or surfing the web via a phone or laptop - should also be capped at €0.50 a megabyte, again lowering the bar on the commission proposal, which had been €1 a megabyte.
A compromise on the matter between the parliament and the Council of Ministers, representing the member states, should be negotiated in the coming weeks, with a vote in the industry committee on the compromise occurring at the end of the month. The legislation will then be considered by the full house at the end of April.
