back to article Reding threatens to cap data roaming in July

EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding put the frighteners on operators and national regulators today, by reiterating her July 1 deadline to cut data roaming rates and making a grab for the digital dividend. The GSMA reckons that the cost of data roaming in Europe has already dropped 25 per cent in the last six months, but …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ermm shouldn't that have been

    "what member pigopolists do with their digital dividend"?

  2. The Cube
    Thumb Up

    I think the lady should be praised

    After finding out how much those thieving bloodsuckers at VodaPhoney want for roaming data in Europe, £10 / MB, I now buy a PAYG SIM in each country I regularly visit for data access. I recently went for a week in another country on PAYG using it for both calls and data, including the SIM it cost me less than 1MB on VodaTheft.

    There is no whiney "we have to pay £xx per MB because the nasty in country operator charge us too much" excuse either when it is VodaPhoney in each country. It is about time somebody took a very big stick to the cash machine that is mobile telecomms, the market has very clearly failed and we have what is, in effect, a price fixing cartel.

  3. yorksaint
    Happy

    Not in Greece...

    Wouldn't work in Greece, think you need a contract to access webdata on mobile with a local sim card. Voda charge I believe £5/day max 15Mb cap, then £2/Mb thereafter on PAYG roaming.

  4. pctechxp

    Price cap good, EU bad

    The fact she is getting tough on a rip off inductry is to be applauded but the EU should remain just a single market.

    I have a problem with them trying to control our parliament and laws, someone should tell them to butt out of internal affairs in the same way that Russia would if we tried to tell them what to do (though for the record I am concerned about the return of the communists under a different name to Russia)

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Price

    How much does it cost to transfer that 10MB to UK or any other country as it's Internet Data? Not much. There's no big difference between operational costs between different networks and countries also. I fully support her - we got enough of that Merkin b*llshit free markets. They don't work, they tend to create oligopolies that quickly transform into price fixing cartels. All in the name of profits for shareholders. No social responsibility or any responsibility actually.

  6. Fazal Majid

    Operators still gouge...

    Across the board on mobile data (not even the roaming sort), SMS and voice roaming, but most of all on inbound calls charged to other operators' customers (why should they moderate their gouging when regulators give them free rein?) and on international calls (there is absolutely no reason mobile operators should get a free pass from the competition requirements their landline cousins are required to abide by).

    Mobile operators are not fledglings any more, regulators should have dropped the kid gloves a long time ago.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    charging for nothing

    Returning from Portugal recently, I faced a charge of 30p for 50kb, which is absurdly high but at least it makes sense. The charge for 830 minutes of a data connection WITH NO DATA USAGE was £70. Are people like Reding really adressing the right issue?

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