EU to cut cost of texting abroad by 2009

Mobile phone operators will face regulation after failing to lower the cost of text messaging voluntarily, the EU has announced.

Information society chief Viviane Reding said that she was deeply disappointed that mobile phone operators had not managed to lower prices on text messaging between member states, despite previous warnings.

“Prices for SMS messages have practically not moved. I deplore this bunker mentality of the mobile operators. They promised self-regulation. They failed,” she told journalists on Tuesday.

“I am not very impressed at all.”

Findings from a commission study into text messaging show that the average cost of sending a text from one country to another in the EU at the moment is €0.29, but that it ranges from as low as €0.06 in Estonia to €0.80 in Belgium.

Additionally, the cost of browsing the internet and downloading files via mobile phones, also known as data roaming services, varied from €0.25/mb in bundled packages to over €15/mb in some stand-alone offers.

Reding said that the results had been more optimistic for data roaming charges, with “first movements in the market”, but high prices continued to discourage people from using the services due to the shock of receiving a large phone bill on returning from abroad.

“We cannot tolerate consumers coming home from holiday to a bill for several thousand euros due to basic internet browsing,” she said.

Reding said that the commission would work over the summer to produce a proposal with the aim of bringing down SMS prices by next summer. “By 1 July 2009 at the latest, I expect the roaming regulation to reduce the price of texting abroad by 70 per cent,” she added.

The European regulators group recommended that rates should be set between €0.04 and €0.08 per SMS message.

Scottish Greens/EFA deputy Ian Hudghton added his support for regulation in this area.

“Texting is an important way for people to keep in touch with home when they go away on holiday or business, but sadly, many people come home to discover they've run up far higher bills than expected,” he said in a press release.

“I share the disappointment of Commissioner Reding at the mobile phone industry's failure to impose self-regulation and halt their overcharging, particularly since they know they would face regulation if they failed to act,” he added.

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