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EU Text Cap May be Difficult to Wear
(04 Sep 2008, BWCS Staff)Trouble-shooting EU telecoms commissioner, Viviane Reding, is apparently finalizing plans to cap cross-border text charges, within the 27 state EU, at euros 0.11. Reding will reportedly seek support for her plans, part of a wider package of mobile market changes, from fellow commissioners in late September or early October. If successful the package will be submitted to the member states and ultimately the EU Parliament for final approval.
Reding scored some success last year when she forced through price caps on voice calls made from mobile handsets from one EU country to another. In July of this year the Commissioner suggested that the price cap for texts should be set at between euros 0.11 and euros 0.15 before tax. However, she has now settled on the lower limit. The current cost of sending a text message across EU borders is put at an average of euros 0.29, or roughly ten times the amount it would cost a user to send a text domestically.
According to some press reports, the Commissioner is also keen to push down the price of downloading mobile data. Reding's proposals include plans to require billing by the second for cross-border EU calls longer than half a minute after she found evidence that some operators inflate prices by rounding up to the next minute.
Lastly, she is said to be planning to extend the recently introduced cap on the price of mobile voice calls, which is due to run out in 2010, to 2013. EU countries will be able to express their opinions on the package at a meeting of telecoms ministers in late November. The European Parliament will discuss the proposals in the first half of next year.
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