EC Calls For End To Mobile Roaming Charges

European travellers who use their mobile phones abroad could soon see a dramatic reduction in their bills, after the European Commission announced plans to eradicate roaming charges by 2015.

In a consultation paper launched yesterday, the EC invited consumers, businesses, telecom operators and public authorities to evaluate the EU’s existing roaming rules, and to share their ideas on the best ways to boost competition in roaming services.

“Huge differences between domestic and roaming charges have no place in a true EU Single Market,” said vice-president of the European Commission for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes. “We need to address the source of current problems, namely a lack of competition, and to find a durable solution. But we are keeping an open mind on exactly what solution would work.”

Eradicating roaming charges

One of the key performance targets for the digital single market is that the difference between national and roaming charges should approach zero by 2015. The EC’s paper highlights the need for an appropriate benchmark for national tariffs, either built in to individual price plans or based on a more general national or European average.

The consultation builds on previous efforts by the European Commission to introduce price caps for roaming charges and increase transparency. In July this year, a price cap of 33p per minute was applied on roaming voice calls, and data-roaming is automatically limited to £42 per month, excluding VAT.

In a June 2010 interim report, the Commission noted that although legislation has led to lower roaming prices, the market is not yet strong enough to provide the best choice to consumers. Retail prices tend to cluster around the EU regulated maximum price caps, even though the Commission says EU rules give operators plenty of margin to offer more attractive roaming tariffs.

“Even at the practical day-to-day level the lack of the telecoms single market is a nightmare for many SMEs,” said Kroes at the time. “Why should they have to travel around Europe juggling SIM cards and paying a fortune to communicate? A modern entrepreneur wants to have continuous access to all his or her business information travelling around the world with a smart-phone and laptop.”

Last month, UK operator Vodafone announced it was lowering the cost of web browsing for its users whilst abroad with its ‘Vodafone Data Traveller‘ service.

Occasional travellers can take their domestic data plan abroad for only £2 per day, which according to Vodafone represents a cost reduction of up to 60 percent over existing plans and includes an increase to the data allowance to 25MB of data. Meanwhile frequent travellers can select to take a £10 per month price plan which includes the same daily data allowance of 25MB.