The European Commission is to force mobile operators to
reduce the charges they levy against users for using their phones
abroad.
Some users can be charged over £3 a minute for making a call
when on a foreign network when travelling.
The European Commission is acting because the operators have
failed to adequately reduce prices despite promises to the
Commission that they would.
Viviane Reding, information, society & media European
commissioner, held a meeting with national telecoms regulators this
week and demanded regulatory action to reduce roaming charges.
Reding is expected to announce this week that roaming charges
should be capped at levels equivalent to standard domestic mobile
calls between networks.
The cost of mobile data connections when roaming across
different countries is also high, although the commission is not
expected to act on these charges, for now.
One reason for this lack of action is that relatively few users
take advantage of mobile data services over mobile networks when
travelling.