Lawmakers Remain Split Over Mobile Phone Roaming Charges

BRUSSELS (AP)--European Union lawmakers remained divided Thursday about whether a proposed EU-wide cap on mobile phone roaming charges should be automatic or whether customers would only get it from their operator on request.

Mobile phone companies claim that price ceilings on how much they can charge people who use their phones abroad would be a "regulatory straitjacket" that disrupts their carefully balanced pricing structure.

But the European Commission wants to cut the cost of mobile phone calls for cross-border travelers, saying operators are reaping billions of euros from charges that are unjustifiably higher than fees charged within a user's home country for using another network.

It also wants mobile phone companies to give personalized information to customers on what they will be charged if they take their phone abroad to receive or make calls or text messages.

Proposals for the maximum roaming charges at retail level vary between 40 and 50 euro cents a call made abroad and 15 and 25 cents for receiving calls.

Current talks are focusing on how these price caps could be achieved and whether they should also apply to data calls to cut the costs of people using their phones to access the Internet or e-mail when they are abroad.

Two influential committees of the European Parliament this week broadly backed the idea of setting a price ceiling. But while center-left deputies and the EU's executive Commission want consumers to be able to opt out of an E.U.-wide capped tariff if their operator offers them a better deal, center-right parliamentarians in the consumer protection committee, fearing overregulation, Thursday voted in favor of consumers being able to opt in to the proposed new tariff and operators being obliged to advertise it.

"This assumes that operators will advertise against their interest in favor of an E.U. tariff. It's more likely that turkeys will vote for Christmas," said Maltese Socialist deputy Joseph Muscat, accusing center-right deputies of caving in to lobbyists.

Consumer groups deplored the center-right amendment, saying operators would have little incentive to advertise a reduced E.U.-wide tariff and mobile phone users would be left unprotected against overpriced calls.

"MEPs voted for higher prices. They left most E.U. consumers...at the mercy of telecom operators," said Jim Murray, director of the European Consumers' Organization.

The new regulation must be approved by both the European Parliament and E.U. governments, which would like to see a deal in place by the European summer holiday season. The full 785-seat E.U. assembly will vote on the regulation in May.

The European Commission says prices operators charge when clients call from abroad are on average four times those of national mobile calls.

A four-minute call home for a Cypriot in Belgium can cost EUR12 and for an Irish visitor in Malta as much as EUR13.16. When the operational cost to back a roaming call is less than 20 euro cents in most cases, the E.U. says that operators charge consumers about EUR1.15.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires"

Posted to the site on 22nd March 2007