EU MPs to back deal cutting mobile roaming fees

Strasbourg, France, May 23: European Union lawmakers were set to back a popular plan today to slash the cost of using mobile phones abroad in the 27-member bloc.

The EU's executive Commission says the plan will cut prices to a quarter or a fifth of what EU citizens now pay for making and receiving calls in other member states.

''The regulation will protect the vast majority of ordinary customers who up to now have been heavily overcharged when travelling abroad,'' EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding told EU lawmakers debating mandatory caps on roaming charges.

The lawmakers, who gave broad backing to the measure in a debate, were to vote on the deal later today.

Joachim Wuermeling, speaking for the German presidency of the EU, told lawmakers he hoped member states would give the final green light on June 29.

That would give operators until the end of July to offer price caps and until the end of August to enforce them.

The legislation is part of a push by the EU to show it can bring real benefits to its 490 million citizens, many of whom complain Brussels is too remote from their daily lives.

Reding warned that the EU could also regulate the price of mobile phone data -- such as text and audiovisual messages (SMS and MMS) -- if prices did not fall, stressing that the EU executive and national regulators would watch prices closely.

''The operators should know this, see this warning signal very carefully and bring the prices down to normal by themselves in order to avoid further regulation,'' she said.

Timing

In the first year, the EU-wide roaming tariff would be set at 49 euro cents (0.67 dollars) a minute for making calls abroad and 24 cents for receiving them. It would fall to 46 and 22 cents in the second year and 43 and 19 cents in the third, respectively.

The caps would then lapse unless reaffirmed by EU states and the bloc's assembly.

The timing of the measure means some of the EU's 150 million mobile phone users may miss out on the benefit if they take their summer holidays in July.

The price cap will only become automatic for all customers two months after the offer is made.

Customers already benefiting from specific roaming tariffs or packages will not be switched automatically.

Big operators argued the deal would curb competition in roaming, a sector worth 8.5 billion euros in 2005, but their competitors said they could live with the price caps. Many operators have already cut roaming fees ahead of the new rules.

The price limits will apply only to cross-border calls made or received in any of the 27 EU states, not when travelling in other countries.

EU lawmakers showed their support for a requirement for operators to inform users on the price of roaming.

''Just as when you go into a restaurant the price is on the menu, so when you cross a border your mobile phone should show you the price of a phone call,'' said Paul Ruebig, the conservative lawmaker who led the assembly's tough negotiations with EU states on the caps.

Reuters>