The European Commission is lobbying mobile phone operators to discount their rates for text messages and is threatening to put price caps in place if they don’t comply. Recently price caps were put in place for roaming charges.
EU Wants Price Caps On Text Messages
“I call on operators to deal with the problem of high prices for text messages and data,” EU Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding said.
Reding said if her recommendations are ignored by mobile operators that she would release a report at the end of next year examining if price caps should also be applied to text messages.
EU mobile users have seen the cost of using their mobile phones while traveling in Europe drop by 60 percent since roaming price caps were put into place over the summer, according to the European Commission.
European mobile operators are prohibited from charging EU subscribers making country-to-country calls in the 27-nation bloc more than 49-euro cents (69 U.S. cents) a minutes in the first year of application and receiving a call could not cost more than 24 cents.
The price cap for roaming services is scheduled to drop again in the second year to 46 and 22 cents and then 43 and 19 cents in the third year according to the AP.
The European Commission said that 200 million users had switched to the Eurotariff and that the majority of mobile operators had made the transition faster than they were legally required to and activated the Eurotariff in July or August.
