EU mobile roaming price caps to be extended

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The EU is set to impose even tougher restrictions on the prices mobile phone operators can charge for cross-border roaming within member countries.

EU Telecoms Commissioner, Viviane Reding, has proposed widening the scope of existing price caps on mobile phone calls made outside a home state in the 27-nation bloc to include roamed text messages and surfing the internet using a handset.

Many networks have already reduced the cost of text and data roaming charges in an effort to head-off EU price caps. However, these efforts have not been considered enough, while the longevity of such cuts have also been brought into question.

The bloc's telecom ministers are set to give the green light to the measure that also extends by three years to 2013 existing price caps on roamed voice calls. Reding said last week she expects "strong agreement" on the measure.

The European Parliament, which has a joint say on the legislation that is expected to take effect 1 July 2009, is also expected to give its backing to the plan.

Reding has proposed a retail price cap of 11 euro cents per roamed text compared with the current EU average of 29 cents.

Ministers are also expected to back her proposal for billing of roamed voice calls per second from the 31st second to crackdown on operators that charge by the minute only.

Reding also proposed a wholesale cap of 1 euro per megabyte on roamed data but some governments want a lower cap. Ministers may agree a new provision to stop "bill shock" for data roaming services such as a cutoff or warning after 50 euros.

Most UK mobile networks charge their customers between £1.50 and £3 per MB when roaming in other EU countries. Prices for roaming outside the EU can be as high as £15 per MB.

Operators say consumers could ultimately be hit.

"It is important to look beyond this new extension in order to get out of this cycle of price regulation that tries to target just a piece of the market and which gradually makes investments in new networks less compelling," a spokesman for Orange-France Telecom in Brussels said.

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