The cost of sending a text message from the bar or the beach when mobile phone users are outside their home state in the European Union will be more than halved under new plans, an EU source said. EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding will announce the measure on Tuesday that will also include extending price caps on roamed voice calls for another three years, the source added.
After the "No" vote in the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in June, Brussels is keen to show it has a role to play in the lives of the bloc's 490 million citizens. Price caps on roamed voice calls introduced last year by Reding were one of Brussels' most popular policies ever. As the European summer holiday season gets under way, Reding's proposal for extending the legislation to cap the price of texts will also help cut bills landing on doormats back home.
National telecoms watchdogs in the EU say the average retail price of sending a text when roaming in the bloc is about 30 euro cents and a "Eurotariff" of 11 to 15 cents would allow for full recovery of costs and give operators a reasonable return.
Reding gave operators a target of 12 cents per text but a study for the Danish government recommended 4.2 cents. She is likely to seek a cap somewhere between the two.
She is likely to introduce a cap on how much operators charge each other when a customer uses their laptop or mobile phone to send emails or download a song, known as data roaming.
The text market is mature but data roaming is still in its infancy and telecoms regulators and operators have insisted that price caps would not be appropriate. But Reding may decide at the last minute to say more study is needed before a final decision on whether to introduce caps on roamed data.
The measures that will need approval from EU governments and the European Parliament to come into force. Reding warned mobile phone giants like Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile and Orange in February that she would propose price caps unless they slashed the cost of roamed texts and data transfer. Operators say they could not introduce coordinated price cuts to similar levels for fear of triggering antitrust probes. Many have cut the price of data roaming and say they offer free texts as part of packages.
National telecoms regulators in the 27-nation EU see no case for caps on data roaming prices but want better information for customers to avoid "bill shock". Reding gave operators a target of 35 cents per megabyte in the wholesale market. Reding is set to say a three-year extension on roamed voice caps to 2013 is needed as operators have cut prices to just below the ceiling, a sign Reding and telecoms regulators say shows a lack of vigorous competition.
Commission officials have indicated that cap on making a roamed call could fall from 46 cents this year to 32 cents by 2013. For a big operator like Vodafone texts and data roaming represent about 1 percent each of revenues and Reding's proposals will have a minor impact compared with voice caps. "It makes great headlines in the short term but the consequences won't be seen for some time. It's naive to think companies can keep taking it on the chin," a senior operator official said.
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