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Wednesday, July 6, 2011

European Commission proposes lower roaming charges with option of separate roaming contract

Hot on the heels of this month’s changes to international ‘roaming’ charges - the cost of using a mobile phone when abroad - comes a new proposal from the European Commission. The new regulations, if voted into law, would allow customers to sign up for a separate roaming contract on their existing mobile phone number from July 2014.

In addition, there’d be a further reduction to maximum call costs and SMS costs in Europe, along with a new cap on the cost of using mobile data when abroad.

In two years time, roaming consumers would have their call costs within the EU capped at a maximum of 24 Euro cents per minute to make a call (26p/min incl. VAT) and 10 cents per minute to receive a call. Text messages would be capped at 10 cents.

Data usage would be capped at a maximum 90 cents per megabyte from 1st July 2012, falling to 50 cents per MB by July 2014. The EC says there’s currently a wide variation in data pricing across Europe, with an average retail price of €1.06/MB but some customers paying as much as €12 per MB.

Mobile operators (including virtual mobile network operators) would also have their wholesale inter-network prices regulated.

Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice President for the Digital Agenda, said “This proposal tackles the root cause of the problem – the lack of competition on roaming markets – by giving customers more choice and by giving alternative operators easier access to the roaming market. It would also immediately bring down prices for data roaming, where operators currently enjoy outrageous profit margins."

The EC’s Digital Agenda for Europe has previously said it wanted to see the difference between roaming and national tariffs approaching zero by 2015.

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Opinion Articles

Why the cloud will kill SMS text messages... eventually

Mark Bridge writes:

This week my lovely wife made a rare error in leaving her mobile phone behind when she left the house. Fortunately I was working at home, so I was able to answer her calls and relay her messages. But it got me thinking. What were the alternatives?

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This week at The Fonecast: 1st May 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

We've had another short working week here in the UK... although not necessarily if you're working in retail. The reason for that shortness was a combination of Easter Monday and the Royal Wedding – an event that was rumoured to have its own mobile phone jammer.

As well as having another short week, we've also had another week of financial figures.

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This week at The Fonecast: 23rd April 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s Easter, but that’s not stopped the mobile phone industry from generating plenty of news stories.

Let’s start with partnerships. Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom - which already work together as Everything Everywhere in the UK – have now agreed to combine their procurement activities for customer equipment, network equipment, service platforms and IT infrastructure. Yes, even these two telecoms giants can save money with group buying!

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Exactly how boring is the Samsung Galaxy II S?

Mark Bridge writes:

In July last year I wrote about the 'geek porn' of unboxing being taken to a new level with celebrity unboxing (which sounds rather like a challenge from a reality TV show).

Sony Ericsson had persuaded Maria Sharapova to give her first impressions of the X10 Mini Pro. The end result was entertaining, if not insightful.

And now Samsung have added a new facet to the trend with 'extreme unboxing'.

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This week at The Fonecast: 16th April 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

We started this week with a story that grabbed plenty of attention. It was a report from Billmonitor.com that claimed we in the UK were wasting almost £5 billion every year by choosing the wrong mobile tariffs. Although I remained a little cynical about some of the detail, there's no doubt that many consumers could be better off if they switched tariff - or even network.

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