The European Commission has launched a public consultation on how to improve competition in mobile phone roaming services in the 27-nation European Union bloc.

Published: 09 Dec 2010

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on how to improve competition in mobile phone roaming services in the 27-nation European Union bloc.

European citizens should pay the same mobile phone charges no matter what European Union country they may find themselves in, stressed the Commission.

The EU Commissioner for Europe’s digital agenda, Neelie Kroes, said the price gap between domestic mobile charges and roaming rates remains unjustifiably high.

Consequently, she said her ultimate aim is to reduce the gap to nothing by 2015.

To date, the Commission has legislated to bring down the cost of making calls and sending texts while visiting other member states. In future, it plans to do more to reduce the extortionate cost of using smartphones to surf the web or download data when abroad in Europe.

Kroes said, “Allowing better cross-border services will help our fellow citizens to see that there is a point to European co-ordination. They see the value of Commission intervention today, for example in our efforts to address the problem of roaming prices. But this does not mean they share the understanding that the Single Market is the EU's crown jewel. So to build this Single Market and make its value clear, we all need to make compromises regarding how this market may operate.”

“…it frustrates me to see that real price competition is not emerging in roaming services markets. Operators are generally setting roaming prices close to, or exactly at, the maximum allowable levels. I understand that the lack of incentives to compete may be due, for example, to customers choosing their mobile operator according to domestic prices. But this is not a reason for me or, more importantly, for European citizens to accept this situation.”

The new model, if adopted, would allow customers attached to a single network in their home country to pick from a range of operators as they travelled to other European countries. It would be a move away from price caps, which was a high-profile piece of regulation that resonated with consumers far more than most other EU legislation. The caps reduced roaming prices to a maximum of 39 cents a minute to make calls and 15 cents a minute to receive calls, with text messages costing 11 cents each. Data download prices are also controlled, albeit less stringently.