Number's Up for Charges ; EU Ministers Back Plans to Cap Mobile Roaming Fees
292399
CALLS for an all-Ireland mobile phone tariff were made yesterday after plans to slash cross-border roaming charges by up to 70 per cent were backed by EU ministers.   Millions of mobile phone users across 27 member states will benefit from the new rules adopted by the EU Telecoms Council.
563242
The European Union's top telecoms  official said on Tuesday work on rules that will cap mobile  phone roaming charges is going "smoothly" and reiterated that  she expects an agreement by the summer.
190979
Tries to cut down price hurdles Ofcom's chief executive Ed Richards will tell a meeting of European regulators today there is a need to make sharp reductions to the costs of "text roaming" and "data roaming" across Europe.â¦
681582
European legislators hope that aÂ compromise agreementÂ to cap mobile phone roaming charges will become law before Europeans take their summer holidays. But a network operators' group warned to expect delays because even if the law takes effect as planned July 1, network operators won't have to offer the new tariffs until September.
2610
(InfoWorld) - The European Union's 27 governments gave the final OK Thursday to a law that will slash the cost of using a mobile phone abroad by around 70 percent, the German government said. By the end of this month mobile phone operators will have to offer subscribers a capped rate for phoning or receiving calls while outside their own countries. In the first year, roaming tariffs will be capped at â¬0.49 ($0.66) a minute for making calls abroad and â¬0.24 for receiving them. It will fall to â¬0.46 and â¬0.22 in the second year and â¬0.43 and â¬0.19 in the third, respectively. A rear-guard action by the U.K. in defense of mobile phone operators petered out and British Industry Minister Margaret Hodge was convinced to support theÂ compromise packageÂ put forward by the European Parliament. Mobile phone operators haveÂ lobbied hard to avert the law, which they see as unnecessary and harmful to competition. German Economy Minister Michael Glos was chairing the meeting because Germany currently holds the six-month rotating presidency of the EU. He will announce the agreement reached Thursday morning at a press conference at 3 p.m. CET (1 p.m. GMT). Â
22253
(InfoWorld) - While mobile operators claim to be cutting the cost of roaming, their efforts are just a smoke screen and have no appreciable effect on charges overall, a European consumer rights group has said. The lower tariffs are typically available for a limited duration, sometimes requiring payment of an additional subscription fee, and may only be cheaper for long calls made using certain networks, BEUC, the European Consumers' Organisation, said on Tuesday. The fees should be capped at â¬0.33 ($0.43) per minute for customers roaming outside their home country, consumer groups said . Their demand is considerably lower than the cap of â¬0.49 per minuteÂ proposed by the European CommissionÂ in draft legislation that could be voted by June. Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media,Â announced plans last FebruaryÂ to crack down on mobile phone roaming charges, which she said were unreasonably high. On July 12, the Commission proposed cutting by 70 percent the cost of making and receiving calls while travelling in another European Union member state, saving European consumers â¬5 billion a year, according to the Commission's figures. Under the Commission's proposal, operators will be allowed to charge no more than â¬0.16 per minute for calls received while travelling abroad, â¬0.33 per minute for calls made within the country being visited, or â¬0.49 per minute for calls made back home or to a third country while abroad. However, that's still too much for the consumer groups, which called for charges of â¬0.16, â¬0.25 and 0.33 per minute, respectively. The French Consumers' Union (UFC - Que Choisir) called for national telecommunications regulators to collect more information about the volume of incoming, outgoing and local roaming calls, and the wholesale prices charged by operators for each type of call. Without such statistics, it's difficult to measure the effects of tariffs and policies, the group said. Regulators and consumers are dependent on figures provided by the GSM Association, which represents 700 mobile phone operators, the French group said. Those figures showed that the cost of making roaming calls in Europe fell by 25 percent in 2006, from â¬0.83 per minute to â¬0.62, the GSM Association said on Feb. 8. The price decline shows that regulation, especially of the retail market, is unnecessary, the Association said. In the absence of independent measurements of the market, BEUC and UFC - Que Choisir commissioned their own economic analysis in order to determine what they consider fair price caps. Limiting charges to â¬0.33 per minute will stimulate demand, and so have no adverse effect on operators' revenue or profit, they said. Based on mobile phone bills supplied by Members of the European Parliament, they calculated that lower charges could save MEPs an average over â¬1,000 each per year. European telecommunications ministers are expected to discuss the Commission's proposed regulations at informal meetings alongside the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany, next month, while the European Parliament will vote on the proposals in April. Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, has announced its intention to push the legislation on roaming prices through by the end of June, when its term of office ends. Â
718695
Numbers of people using hand-held mobile phones is believed to be rising again in spite of tough new legislation.
758772
The low-cost airline will offer mobile access to passengers, for a price. Fees to "mirror" roaming charges.
327448
The cost of making mobile phone calls in Europe is set to fall after lawmakers backed plans to cap roaming fees.
535292
European consumer groups want a cap on mobile phone tariffs  for customers making roaming call outside their home country.
477839
LUXEMBOURG -- EU governments agreed to cut the cost of using mobile phones abroad Thursday, paving the way for a cap on roaming fees later this summer.
463864
Business & money: Â·  EC looks at forcing down price of mobile roaming Â·   Worries over high costs  for business
667505
European business travellers and holidaymakers can look forward to lower rates on mobile phone calls while abroad in the EU once new price caps go into effect across the bloc starting on Saturday.
145208
EU telecommunications ministers backed on Thursday rules slashing the cost of cross-border mobile phone calls by up to 70 percent, lifting the last political hurdle to their application.
547513
Apple's reportedly will announce deals to sell the iPhone in Europe this week. Carriers O2, Orange and T-Mobile are said to be giving huge portions of the usage fees back to Apple.
91472
EU telecoms ministers back rules that cut the charges for using mobile phones abroad.
500129
There is some concern that roaming fees, which are being waived until the end of the year, will later be reimposed. Ken Dulaney of Gartner does not think this is likely, however, because the agreement