Commission clamps down on roaming
A plan to clamp down on excessive rates for calls on mobile phones while abroad was launched on Monday (27 March) by the European Commission, with EU citizens set to enjoy cheaper 'roaming' by summer 2007.
"I am determined...to bring down the European roaming prices," EU media commissioner Viviane Reding told reporters.
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Under the plan, all roaming charges for receiving a call while travelling abroad in the EU will be eliminated.
The proposal also introduces a so-called "home pricing" principle where mobile phone charges from a consumers' home country would apply to all other EU countries as well.
The charges for local and international calls set by the mobile company in a customer's home country would also be the same when using a mobile in any of the 25 EU member states.
"Only when using your mobile phone abroad do you see that there are borders in Europe," Ms Reding said.
She stated it was "high time" that EU internal market benefits, such as free movement of goods and persons, should also enter the telecoms market.
For each phone call made on a mobile, customers pay a start-, transit- and end-fee. Fees for beginning and ending a call are, on an EU average, €0.12, while the fee for a call in transit is around €0.01 per minute - a fee that has dropped over the later years as technology has improved.
However, mobile customers using their phone abroad have not benefited from this drop in transit fees when they receive a call from home in another EU country.
They still pay a much higher fee for having their receiving call transferred to a foreign network.
"[Annually] we think there is about €10 billion made [in revenue] from all international roaming in the EU," said Peter Rodford, in charge of the commission's proposal.
EU roaming website
A website for consumers to check and compare prices was launched last October revealing huge differences in prices for using mobile phones across the continent.
Roaming prices have either stagnated or gone up since then with the most-ever visited EU website re-launched on Monday.
However, head of the European Telecommunications Network Association, Michael Bartholomew, is strongly concerned by the commission's proposal.
He said such a move was "unprecedented" and added that the commission measures "risk hampering competitiveness of the industry."
At a summit in Brussels last week, EU leaders strongly backed Mrs Reding in her attempts to tackle roaming costs.
The conclusions of the meeting note the "importance for competitiveness of reducing roaming charges" and the commission was asked to bring the issue back to the ministers' table before the end of 2006.
Lawmakers in the European Parliament also strongly support the plan.
After a second consultation in April where persons and businesses can offer their views to the commission the proposal needs to be approved by the parliament and by EU leaders.
The EU law is expected to come into force by summer 2007.
When receiving calls abroad, a four minute talk at peak times ranges from €1.36 a minute for a French citizen located in Luxembourg, to €5 for a Belgian citizen answering a call in Cyprus.
On the other hand, the same type of call costs €2.04 for a Latvian calling from Italy to their home country, while a Belgian calling home from Cyprus pays €10.