Europe's ridiculous cellphone roaming charges are about to be fixed. The European Commission will cap the price of SMS messages to 11 cents (US$0.15).
In a story to be published in the German Der Spiegel magazine on Sunday, EU telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding also confirms that per-second billing will be enforced for telephone calls and "competition for accessing the internet abroad will be increased".
While this is good news, especially as roaming in mainland Europe can mean driving just a few miles over the border, it still doesn't tackle the profiteering of domestic telephone services. In many EU countries, the incumbent national telcos still have a grip on the market, leading to artificially high prices. In Spain, for example, regular, landline internet is very expensive, with many tariffs at around €60 per month. This is because Telefónica really hates letting anybody else provide connections over "its" phone lines.
Mobile internet, too, is overpriced, along with regular cellphone plans. The EU is at least addressing the issues, but the telcos seem to be content to take money in return for limited service rather than making providing something so good and cheap that people will be happy to pay.
EU's Reding confirms caps on roamed SMS: magazine [Reuters]
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