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back to article EU postpones roaming cap decision

The Brussels vote on capping mobile phone roaming charges has been postponed until the next plenary session, scheduled for 21 to 24 May. The vote was due to take place today, but negotiations between the commission, European Parliament, and council are still ongoing. The basic concept, that the EU will cap the amount operators …

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  1. Robert T

    Propping up profits

    It's a tragedy. Germany should be pulled into line. They are holding competition back in Europe and will be the cause of a lot of grief for consumers of Telco services and many Telcos themselves.

    The German Government is very lax about their Telcos, price and quality regulation, and isn't working for their people, because they like the idea of German telcos (in particular Telekom) being the most profitable in Europe, in order to buy other companies outside of Germany. The Telekom-Fiber deal currently under scrutiny by the EU is one but instance. Germany not having any telecommunications ombudsman or simple complaint mechanism also means that the only recourse for telco abuses within Germany is the courts, and keeps all but the most serious abuses from the media's and consumer's scrutiny.

    It's time to beat telco's into line with enforced legislation that encourages competition, and punishes monopoly and cartel behaviour. Short term consequences be damned - it's for the common good.

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  2. James

    Missing word..

    There seems to be a word missing in final paragraph...

    "so the cap won't reduce their costs and could even increase them as operators seek to maintain their *obscene* profits"

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  3. AJ

    Rip Off Roaming Charges...

    Its about time that roaming charges are reduced as mobile firms have ripped of customers and profited way too much on this for too long!!

    Its scandalous that it has not been sorted well before now. I went away last year and ended up with a huge bill for sending texts which did not come out of my allowance and cost me 40p each. But to make it worse, Although I didn't use my phone whilst abroad i got £16 worth of charges because people tried to ring me and i didn't answer due to the cost incurred by me but was STILL charged as the calls were directed to my answering machine.

    Lets hope the price agreed by the EU means that customers can see BIG savings whilst using their mobiles abroad. They should not be charged at all for receiving calls and to be honest most of the companies abroad are owned by the same ones in the UK anyway such as who owns O2 or being connected to Vodafone Spain so the argument of being charged for networks abroad carrying the call is utter boll@$*%

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  4. David Beck

    Don't Pay, Won't Pay

    Okay I thought these folks would soon be out of business but here are a couple of Int'l SIM providers -

    http://www.awayphone.com/

    http://www.oneroam.co.uk/

    No doubt there are many others but I use OneRoam. You have to use a special number to get a cheap rate to ring their numbers (Estonian mobiles) but from the SIM most of Europe is 27p/min and free incoming.

    In the US I just buy a Tracfone and divert my UK numbers to my VoIP number which is in turn diverted to the Tracfone number. It takes 5 mins to set up and saves £100's. Tracfone have a calling card number for int'l, use of which is included in Tracfone minutes (read no extra charge to ring the UK from the US).

    I know I'm a techie but anybody can do this stuff.

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Uncertainty

    The Moguls of the EU used to be uncertain but now they are not so sure. It's like the old daye of Order, Counterorder, Disorder. I rest my case.

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