European tourists and business people should see lower cellphone bills in coming months after European Union lawmakers backed on Wednesday rules slashing the cost of cross-border calls by up to 70%.
EU cellphone users no longer need to fear getting bills “greater than the cost of their flights or hotel room” when they travel within in the European Union, said Austrian euro-deputy and the plan’s rapporteur Paul Ruebig.
With a show of hands, an overwhelming majority of EU lawmakers gave their backing to the hotly disputed measures, which have been in the works for more than a year.
The Parliament’s backing clears the way for EU telecommunications ministers to rubber stamp the plans at a June 7 meeting in Luxembourg so that the cheaper rates come into effect over the summer travel period.
Welcoming the vote, EU Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding said: “This means that already from this summer, mobile phone customers will start benefiting from substantially reduced roaming charges when travelling from one EU country to another.
“Europe’s internal market will finally become truly borderless, even for mobile phone bills,” she added.
After more than a year in the works, representatives of the Parliament and member states thrashed out a compromise earlier this month to cap roaming rates between EU countries for three years.
The European Commission first drew up proposals to regulate roaming rates last year after it found evidence of huge variations between operators’ prices, with some roaming calls costing up to six times those of local cellphone calls.
The final compromise would limit the price operators can charge EU subscribers for making cross-border calls within the 27-nation bloc at 49 euro cents (66 US cents) a minute in the first year of application while receiving a call could cost no more than 24 cents.
The ceiling for roaming services would then come down even lower in the second year, falling to 46 and 22 cents and then 43 and 19 cents in the third year.
According to data from September provided by the Parliament, the average retail roaming rate is €1,15 per minute, five times the cost to operators for providing the service.
However, variations between member states can be huge with a four-minute call for a French customer travelling in Italy costing €4,72 while a four-minute call by a Cypriot in Belgium can set a user back €12 ($16,2).
The industry argues that fierce competition has already driven down prices, is up in arms against the package and it has been lobbying hard for the plans to be watered down.
Meanwhile, consumer protection associations are also upset that the regulations do not go far enough, arguing that the ceiling should be brought even lower.
Although the new regulations could technically go into effect as soon as mid-July, cellphone users are unlikely to benefit from the new rates until after the end of summer or early autumn.
The Commission’s aim from the beginning has been to have the regulations in place by the European summer holidays. – AFP