Lower roaming cost, provider choice for mobile users in EU proposal

Jul 6, 2011, 9:58 GMT

Brussels - Cell phone users traveling in the European Union may soon be able to choose which mobile provider they would like to use once they cross a border, under a plan unveiled on Wednesday by the European Commission in a bid to lower so-called roaming costs.

In the meantime, it also wants customers who use mobile devices to make a call, send a text message or check e-mails while outside their home country to pay progressively less to do so.

The maximum cost for making a call in an EU country different from the one where a phone is registered currently lies at 35 euro cents (50 dollar cents) per minute, excluding value-added tax.

The price cap for receiving calls is 11 euro cents per minute, the same as for each text message sent or received.

Under the commission's proposal, those prices would incrementally decline to reach 24 cents per minute and 10 cents per minute respectively by July 2014 - building upon previous EU regulation that has steadily reduced roaming prices since 2007.

The proposal also seeks a price cap for each megabyte of internet data downloaded or uploaded from abroad, starting at 90 euro cents per megabyte in 2012 and falling to 50 euro cents by 2014.

Those services do not currently have a retail price limit, allowing operators to 'enjoy outrageous profit margins,' the EU's digital agenda commissioner, Neelie Kroes, said.

The eventual aim is to achieve a negligable difference between home and roaming mobile prices by 2015.

'The proposed retail caps serve as a mere safety net for consumers,' the commission noted, saying that it expects its proposed competition-enhancing measures to push prices 'significantly below' the price caps.

To encourage cell phone providers to further slash prices, the commission wants to make it possible for customers to pick which provider they would like to use for roaming services from 2014. Currently, their home provider makes that choice for them.

As envisioned by the commission, the provider switch would occur automatically once a customer crosses a border, not requiring any extra action or a change in phone number.

'This would ... allow customers to shop around for the best roaming offers and encourage operators to offer more competitive roaming deals,' it said.

As part of that, the proposal would force mobile operators to give competitors from other EU member states access to their networks at wholesale prices starting in 2012.

'This proposal tackles the root cause of the problem - the lack of competition on roaming markets - by giving customers more choice and by giving alternative operators easier access to the roaming market,' Kroes said.

The measures need to be endorsed by EU governments and the European Parliament to become law, and could be amended significantly during the process.