More cuts in mobile phone roaming charges come into force this week — coupled with new rules to prevent users accidentally racking up huge bills when they use their phones to connect to the internet.
Compulsory maximum roaming rates were first imposed on mobile network operators two years ago to tackle what EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding called the “roaming rip-off.”
A legal claim by networks that the Commission was exceeding its powers failed earlier this month, and now the Commission is lowering the maximum permitted charge rates even further, and introducing measures to stop open-ended billing for “data roaming”.
The current Commissioner for Europe’s “digital agenda”, Neelie Kroes, warned today: “I am determined to make the EU’s telecoms markets more competitive.”
She went on: “There will be no more bill shocks for tourists or business travellers surfing the internet with smart phones or laptops while in another EU country.
“The EU is also cutting the cost of roaming calls for travellers.”
The new maximum tariffs, applicable from Thursday, come in time for summer holidaymakers to benefit from the lower rates. The maximum permitted charge for making a mobile call while abroad will fall to 39 cents a minute and the rate for receiving calls to 19 cents a minute.
Also from July 1 operators will also be obliged to apply an automatic €50 cut-off limit on accounts if the customer has not stipulated their own limit. The operating network will have to send customers a warning when they reach 80 per cent of their data-roaming billing limit.
If the limit is reached, the operator will have to cut off the mobile internet connection, unless the customer has stated in advance that they wish to continue data roaming above their normal agreed limit in a particular month.
The European Court of Justice, throwing out a legal challenge against such EU Commission interference in setting rates, ruled earlier this month that Brussels was right to “protect consumers against excessive prices...even if it might have negative economic consequences for certain operators”.
The first move against high roaming charges in the summer of 2008 was one of the most popular consumer-driven moves by the EU — an average 60 per cent cut in the maximum charges operators could levy on mobile users making or receiving calls while in another EU country.
Maximum rates have been cut once again since then — and now again this week, making mobile roaming charges 73 per cent cheaper on average than they were five years ago when the Commission first began pressing operators to cut their rates voluntarily.
The Commission held off announcing further rate cuts until the outcome of this month’s court action, brought by Vodafone, Telefonica O2, T-Mobile and Orange.
The verdict endorsed the Commission’s right to tackle what the judges said had been identified by public authorities and consumer protection associations as a “persistent problem” throughout the EU.
The Commission will be looking at its roaming rules again in a review in a year’s time, when there may be even more price cuts.
The ultimate aim, says the Commission, is to reduce the difference in domestic and roaming tariffs to virtually zero by 2015.
PA