EUROPEAN REGULATORS yesterday ramped up pressure on mobile phone operators to change their billing practices in a report that says customers are being overcharged for calls made while they are travelling.
The minutes that mobile phone users are billed exceed the duration of calls they make outside their home country "by a significant margin", the European Regulators Group, which represents national telecommunications authorities, said in the report.
By billing users on a per-minute basis, instead of the actual call duration, companies can charge about 24 per cent more for calls made and 19 per cent more for calls received. The European Commission may propose a review of a law adopted last year that capped prices for international calls from mobile phones to consider per-minute billing.
"These new figures by the European Regulators Group are a strong indication that the review of the roaming regulation also has to tackle the issue of per-second billing," said Martin Selmayr, a spokesman for the commission's telecommunications unit.
Another proposal considered in October will be the commission's plan to cut overseas text messaging fees.
Viviane Reding, the EU telecommunications commissioner, in July said companies "are ripping off the consumers".
David Pringle, a spokesman for the GSM Association, which represents more than 750 operators, said competition would suffer if regulators try to "micromanage" the market. At the moment, companies in most countries have the choice between offering users better rates at a per-minute or per-second basis.
"To look at it in that amount of detail would prevent operators from having any flexibility," said Mr Pringle.
The European Regulators Group of watchdogs from the 27 EU nations said in its report that prices charged across the EU for voice calls are "in full compliance" with the EU rules enacted in June 2007.
It said, however, that average retail prices remain at or just below the maximum cap in around two-thirds of the EU countries. - (Bloomberg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/VR3765MFOBH2NMV2QNICYDF67M.png)