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back to article Euro mobe companies mass against cap proposals

Five European mobile operators have ganged up to fight Viviane Reding's proposal to cut termination rates by 70 per cent, with a study showing that it will lead to mobile phone users paying more. The study comes from Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Vodafone, and finds that capping termination fees " …

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  1. Craig McLean
    Paris Hilton

    Screw 'em

    the only people who'll be worse off are the phone companies and their shareholders, so screw 'em. And while we're at it, the ongoing Text Message costs, and Roaming cost reviews need to produce guidlines/legislation quickly too. We're being gouged by these cowboys in what is, now, a mature market.

    I'll bet no more than 18 months before the first price-fixing review hits the industry too.

    Paris because, well, you remember why....

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  3. Aetyr
    Flame

    Surprise, surprise

    The mobile phone companies don't want people to be able to choose to leave their network for cheaper. Quelle surprise!

    Anyone else remember last year when the banks came under threat for their unreasonable (and legally questionable) bank charges. They also spouted some crap about our banking being cheaper than other countries', and how if they were forced to stop charging unreasonable prices for overdrafts, they'd be 'forced' to start charging for other things instead.

    Pure FUD to scare Joe Public away from joining the revolution.

    Considering that you usually leave a phone company because you're unhappy with their service, you shouldn't have to award them a special payout for the privilege. "Here Vodafone, you've screwed me over too many times. Have a lump sum of money as punishment!"

    Ridiculous.

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  4. Graham

    Sounds great

    So 40 million people will chuck their mobile phones if the cap on termination rates goes ahead? That's 40 million less people who will talk loudly on trains and 40 million less people who probably don't need a mobile.

    How is that a bad thing for us ?

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  5. richard

    They were always going to fight it

    Kudos to 3 for standing apart from the crowd.

    As a Brit recently arrived in Canada used to (relatively) cheap mobile service I'm chuffed to see the European govt stepping in to protect the consumer. Just recently one of the largest networks here spontaneously began charging for incoming texts - ontop of the already gouge-level pricing for sending them. Apart from a late-in-the-day bleat from a solitary MP which was quickly stifled as 'the market should decide what consumers should pay, not government', nothing was done.

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Mobe?

    MOOOOOBE??!!!!?!!!

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  7. James

    Crying wolf to protect the perfect scam

    We all know these companies love to screw their customers, but the insanely high termination charges allowed them to go one better and screw *other* companies' customers instead: if Vodafone charge me too much to make calls to other people, I can switch - but if they demand an arm and a leg from other people to call me, there's nothing they can do about it short of not calling me. It doesn't matter if O2 or Orange would be cheaper, because they aren't making that choice!

    It's good to see one telco being honest enough to admit, in effect, that it's all just a scam. It infuriates me whenever I have to call a mobile that I know I'm being screwed by whichever company is terminating the call - for that matter, I feel the same way about incoming calls, knowing that the caller is being screwed for calling me. Yes, they'll either have to eat a slight drop in profits, or push prices up a bit somewhere else - the same is true of ending *any* price gouging, though!

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  8. alex dekker

    Bravo, Big Five

    Thanks guys. I'm so glad we've got you to look after our interests for us. If it wasn't for you, I'm sure we'd be absolutely done over by the government.

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    dont cap it remove it

    if they want to get funny ,dont just cap it, remove it.

    and the day they charge consumers for receiving calls is the day we all stop using them as our main source of phone call business,that wount do any good for their collective executive bank ballances.

    after all, the laptops are getting smaller by the month, so we can just switch to them and a real broadband Wimax supplyer if the wireless freqs dont get sold off to these current mobile phone vultures.

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Corporate -> English translation

    "The study comes from Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Vodafone, and finds that capping termination fees "would not necessarily lead to lower overall costs for owning and using a phone", not to mention leading to millions of people giving up mobile use entirely, and (quite possibly) the end of the world as we know it."

    Translation: We have a god-given right to make profits at this level and if you stop us shafting other companies' customers we'll just shaft our own customers to make up the shortfall. All the talk of a free market means nothing. If we all do it the customers won't have a choice.

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