Mobile phone roaming
No comprehensive solution for tackling artificially high roaming costs
The European Parliament industry committee (ITRE) today voted on new EU legislation on mobile phone roaming. The Greens expressed regret that the EP vote will fail to provide a comprehensive solution to bring down roaming costs. After the vote, Green industry spokesperson Philippe Lamberts said:
"There is no logical reason for the continuing exorbitant costs of mobile phone roaming. The artificial difference between domestic and roaming prices should be completely ended but regrettably the EP today has merely opted to tinker around the edges and failed to provide a comprehensive, lasting solution.
"Instead of voting to end the arbitrarily elevated prices for mobile phone roaming, the EP has voted for relatively modest decreases (1), with the Commission tasked with again reviewing prices in 2016. We do not need yet another review; instead, we should be ending the roaming rip-off now.
"Also in terms of internet and data roaming, which this legislation deals with for the first time, the proposals adopted today lack ambition. Data roaming costs can be thousands of times the actual cost. The Greens wanted to bring these retail prices down to €0.02/MB by this summer but MEPs have regrettably opted to ensure mobile phone companies continue to make exorbitant profits from roaming.
"The EP will now negotiate with the Council to finalise these rules. If today's vote is anything to go by, this legislative review looks set to be a missed opportunity."
(1)
| Retail Prices (charged to consumers) | Wholesale prices (charged between operators) |
Phone calls | From July 2012: €0.25 per minute for outgoing calls and €0.08 per minute for From July 2013: €0.20 euros per minute for outgoing calls and €0.07 per minute for incoming ones From July 2014: €0.15 per minute for outgoing calls and €0.05 per minute for incoming ones | From July 2012: €0.11 per minute From July 2013: €0.08 From July 2014: €0.05 |
Text messages | From July 2012: €0.08 per SMS message From July 2013: €0.07 From July 2014: €0.05
| From July 2012: €0.03 per SMS message From July 2013: €0.02 From July 2014: €0.01
|
Data roaming | From July 2012: €0.50 per megabyte From July 2013: €0.30 From July 2014: €0.20
| From July 2012: €0.25 per megabyte of data transmitted From July 2013: €0.15 From July 2014: €0.05
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