Mobile phone costs to be slashed

PROPOSALS to cut mobile phone costs by a further 70% have been outlined by the European Commission.

Irish mobile phone users pay the second-highest rate on average in the EU at peak call times in connection charges.

These are the rates your operator pays to connect you to a person on another network in the same country.

These rates are set by the national regulators and so vary hugely from one member state to another. In the cheapest country, Cyprus, it is 2c per minute while in the most expensive, Bulgaria, it costs 18c a minute.

In Ireland, peak time connection fees are almost 13c a minute, which is the second-highest in the EU, while off-peak the charge at 7c is below the EU average of 9c.

Mobile connection costs are also much more expensive than for fixed lines — in Ireland the average connection charge on a mobile is 10c a minute compared with .0057c on a fixed line.

The EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding said the big differences makes it difficult for small operators in the business and so holds back competition.

“The consumer pays… over the next three years I expect the costs for mobile phone calls to come down by around 70% from the current level,” she said.

Her proposal aims to bring down connection costs across the EU and diminish the big difference between them by giving clear principles to national regulators when they are deciding the rates.