Telecom firms must offer new roaming fees or risk charges: EU

Brussels (dBTechno) - Mobile phone companies have until Tuesday to offer their customers lower tariffs for making and receiving calls between European Union countries or risk facing legal action, the European Commission warned Monday.

If mobile phone users had not received an offer for lower roaming tariffs by today they could go to court, a commission spokesman said.

Under new EU rules, telecoms companies have until July 31 to offer customers a new pricing structure, with cheaper fees for making and receiving calls when travelling in the 27-nation EU.

After two months, all mobile phone users who have not expressed a preference will then be switched to the new EU tariff.

The commission was about to publish the names of mobile phone operators and their tariffs, the spokesman said.

The list would also name and shame those companies which had failed to offer new roaming fees, he said.

Under the new EU rules, the price cap in the first year will be set at 49 euro cents per minute for making mobile phone calls abroad.

Receiving a call when being outside the home country will cost 24 euro cents in the first year.

By 2009, the price ceilings will fall over time to 43 euro cents for outgoing calls when abroad and 19 cents for incoming calls.

Prices for using mobile phones abroad will be regulated for three years. The EU hopes that by the end of that period, charges will be lower and the market more competitive.

Some operators have said they might try to make up for the losses of revenue from roaming by driving up the cost of local calls.

The new price caps were a striking defeat for Europe’s telecommunication companies which lobbied long and hard against regulating roaming charges, estimated to bring about 8.5 billion euros into their coffers each year.

Roaming rates vary but can account for up to 40 per cent of the price Europeans pay for using their mobile phones elsewhere in the EU. Such roaming fees provide firms with up to 15 per cent of their income, analysts estimate.