MOBILE phone operators who charge customers three times more for their calls when abroad are facing a raft of new rules to force them to drop their prices.
Four years after the first steps to get them to stop ripping off customers with massive roaming charges, the EU is planning a new move against operators.
While making calls when abroad is now 73% cheaper than it was, the highly profitable companies are still making 400% profit on calls made and 500% on SMS and data and even more on roaming calls received.
But surveys show that despite being forced to drop their prices progressively every year, companies are still not competing with one another.
In Ireland for instance three companies — 3, O2 and Vodafone all charge 13 cent for a text when roaming in Britain, Spain, Malta, Italy, France and Finland. Meteor charges vary from 1c in Britain to 13c in Malta and 10c in the other countries.
It is the same for voice calls with Meteor charging €1.16 for a four-minute peak time call home and all the others €1.88.
There is a greater difference between the providers in what they charge to download 1MB of data on smart phones for instance where it varies from 99c to €7.
Vodafone charges €6.05 — the same as when the survey began two years ago.
Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner responsible for the industry said it’s obvious that the companies are not competing with one another and are keeping their prices in most instances close to the maximum permitted.
"Our price cuts have cut roaming prices for now, but they have not solved the underlying problem of a lack of competition in roaming services and prices remain stubbornly close to the retail caps," she said.
Last week the latest, and final, round of price caps came into force but since they have not achieved their objective of creating an industry battling with one another over price to win customers, she has promised a new approach.
This will see travellers throughout the EU able to choose their provider when they go abroad, and not as now being able to tune in only to those that their home provider has a deal with.
"Anytime a person crosses a border they will be able to shop around for their own provider and make their choice based on the prices they offer their services for, without losing their number of having to change SIM cards," she said.
She wants to cap prices for data roaming so that downloading 1MB would cost no more than 50c — down from a high of €7 for some Irish consumers now and compared to around 5c for downloading at home.
The price for voice calls made should drop to 24 cents; voice calls received to 10c a minute, SMS will remain at 10c.
The price operators charge each other will also be capped at 6c a minute for voice calls, 2c for SMS and 10c for 1MB of data.
The current regulation will remain in force until this time next year.
Ms Kroes won an important battle in the European Court of Justice last month when they threw out a challenge to price caps brought by mobile service providers.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Wednesday, July 06, 2011
