EU threatens to get tough over roaming charges

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 28 Mar 2006 at 14:49

Don't go a-roaming in Slovenia. It's not the rousing chorus of a sea shanty, but rather the message from the European Commission to T-Mobile customers in the UK.

According to its updated website highlighting extortionate fees charged by European operators to subscribers when abroad, T-Mobile users on prepaid tariffs pay £7 for the privilege of making or receiving a four-minute call to or from the UK.

Although one might suppose that pre-paid tariffs are cheaper than post-paid ones, when roaming, the opposite is true.

Back in Slovenia, our T-Mobile subscriber would only have had to pay £5.67 for that four minute call if he or she hadn't shown such loyalty to their operator and signed up to a monthly sub.

In fairness to T-Mobile, Slovenia is an anomaly in its general competitiveness in the roaming stakes. Vodafone is far more consistent at charging the highest tolls on customers calling and being called when abroad.

The company to applaud though is Virgin which charges a standard €3.50 for calls to post-paid customers, but again this is cheaper than its prepaid tariffs.

Nevertheless, the EC maintains that operators are charging excessive amounts for these types of calls and is appalled that so little action has been taken by operators since its campaign to stop the practice began last October.

Indeed it says that one operator actually increased roaming charges during that period by more than a £1 to £3.35. According to the website's figures, O2 is the only operator charging that amount. The EC claims that cuts have been the exception rather than the rule for roaming charges, and its patience is running out.

'It is high time that the EU's internal market delivered substantially lower communication charges for consumers and business people travelling abroad,' said information society and media Commissioner Viviane Reding. 'I therefore propose that an EU regulation be used to eliminate all unjustified roaming charges. A mobile phone customer should not be charged a higher tariff just because he is travelling
abroad.'

The proposed regulation would ensure that operators would not charge each other excessive amounts in order to carry calls between them and that these savings are passed on to the subscribers.

Ultimately, it seeks to scrap charges made for receiving calls when abroad and to fix the costs of making calls to local and international destinations with respect to the location of the caller. So our T-Mobile customer stuck in Slovenia would only pay a standard local call to book a cab to the airport and an international call to book another cab to meet him or her on arrival.

The regulation has already passed through the initial consultation stage and could be adopted as early as June. It will still need the approval of the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. The Council has already stated support on the 'importance for competitiveness of reducing roaming charges'.

The Commission website for comparing roaming charges is at http://europa.eu.int/information_society/roaming.

Hopefully, by the summer, Slovenia will be awash with T-Mobile customers...