Cllr Ronan McManus

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REDUCTION IN ROAMING CHARGES WELCOME - McMANUS

Issued : Wednesday 24 June, 2009

Cllr. Ronan McManus has welcomed the news about the new roaming charges for mobile phones that will come into force from July 1^st.  

The new measures that were passed in recent weeks by the European Parliament are very welcome as it has been clear that mobile phone users have been ripped off when using their mobiles while out of the country.  The new charges that come into effect from July 1^st will substantially cut the cost of calls, texting and internet access while abroad in the EU.

Irish customers have been paying up to three times or more for sending a text while in another country compared to when they are paying at home. The messages are sent through precisely the same satellite network, regardless of where they originate, so the additional cost makes no sense. Therefore the drop of the cost of sending a text from approximately 30 cents to 11 cents is welcome, though this figure should be constantly monitored to ensure value for money for mobile phone customers.

The failure of mobile phone companies to regulate their over-inflated costs passed on to customers has led the European Parliament to intervene in this way. The new roaming cap to come into effect from July 1st is welcome, but the lower rates of 35 cents for outgoing calls and 11 cents for incoming calls should be implemented as soon as possible, before the two years timeframe as agreed by the Parliament.

It is essential that these costs are monitored and introduced efficiently. Mobile phone companies have been getting away with fleecing travelling mobile phone users for long enough.

NOTES:

The new roaming rules which will be directly applicable within the EU as of 1 July 2009:

* Introduce a 'Euro-SMS tariff' limiting the price  that consumers can be charged for sending a text message while abroad to € 0.11 excluding VAT (compared to an average of around € 0.29 today) which will lead to consumer savings of around 60%

* Reduce the cost of surfing the web or downloading movies with a mobile phone while abroad by introducing a wholesale cap of € 1 per MB downloaded

* Will protect consumers from 'bill shocks' by introducing a cut-off mechanism once your bill reaches € 50 (unless the consumer opts for a different limit).

* Further reduce prices for mobile roaming calls now capped at € 0.46 for calls made abroad and € 0.22 for calls received abroad (per minute and excluding VAT).

* Introduce the principle of per-second billing after the first 30 seconds.

 The background:

The first EU Roaming Regulation entered into force on 1 July 2007 introducing caps for calls made and received while travelling in the EU which has led to consumer savings of over 40% when compared to roaming prices earlier in the same year. In 2008, following an extensive review of the situation in the European market for roaming services, the European Commission concluded that competition in the market was not yet effective and therefore proposed extending the Roaming Regulation to include new rules for text messages and data roaming services. After the European Parliament voted on 22 April by an overwhelming majority in favour of the new EU roaming rules and after the Council of the EU Telecoms Ministers also approved these new rules, following publication in the EU's Official Journal, they can become law in all 27 EU Member States.

Europe is already the mobile continent: mobile phone usage as a percentage of population went up from 84.6% in 2004 to 119% in 2008 and as a result of continuously falling roaming prices, Europe's 500 million consumers are expected to make even greater use of their mobile phones.