EU website to list roaming phone charges

The European Commission said today it would publish details of roaming phone charges in an effort to get market forces to push…

The European Commission said today it would publish details of roaming phone charges in an effort to get market forces to push down prices.

The European Union executive has been investigating international roaming charges for years amid accusations that mobile phone operators are ripping off customers who make mobile calls while on trips abroad.

Together with telecoms regulators from the EU 25 nations, the commission has now concluded "retail charges in the European Union are currently very high without clear justification".

Roaming charges are also very complex and murky for most users which prevents full competition, the commission said. Its remedy is a website, from this autumn, that lists all charges when mobile phone users travel from one country to another.

READ MORE

There are several reasons for the high charges, including high wholesale prices by foreign host network operators, a high markup charged by consumers' own network operator, wholesale rebates not being passed on to consumers and consumers' lack of information, the commission said.

A user with a Finnish subscription only pays €0.58 per minute when calling home from Cyprus; a Polish subscriber calling home from Malta pays up to €5 per minute.

Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile unit rejected the commission's charges.