MEPs back cheaper roaming rates proposal

The European Parliament has given strong support to the European Commission's proposals to reduce roaming charges for sending text messages and downloading data via mobile phones from July onwards.

The Parliament's industry committee voted 21-8 in favour of a proposal yesterday which will see the cost of texting coming down from a current average of 29c to a maximum of 11c, before VAT.

The EU has already forced mobile phone companies to reduce their rates for calls made abroad but the new proposals will not only see text rates reduced but also costs for downloading data.

The committee recommended that a maximum wholesale charge of 50c be levied for every megabyte of data downloaded, half of the figure originally proposed by European Commissioner Viviane Reding in her proposal which was submitted last September.

The committee also endorsed measures to enhance the transparency of roaming charges to eliminate the risk of "bill shocks" for data roaming. In addition, it recommended per-second billing for roaming calls within Europe after the first 30 seconds, having previously identified that consumers currently pay around 20 per cent too much for roamed calls abroad because of imprecise billing methods.

"In view of the current economic downturn, the Parliament is right in wanting to strengthen the purchasing power of European consumers as of this summer, which will encourage them to make even more use of their mobile phones," said Ms Reding, the EU's Telecoms Commissioner, who initiated the new roaming legislation and attended the Committee vote in Strasbourg yesterday evening.

The 785 members of the European Parliament will vote in their plenary session scheduled from April 21st to 24th, on the roaming proposal and if the Council agrees with the content of the vote, the new roaming rules will come into effect on July 1st, 2009.