The European Commission has agreed plans to slash the costs of using mobile telephones abroad, in the teeth of fierce opposition from the telecommunications industry.
The plans, adopted by the commission at a weekly meeting, aims to halve so-called 'roaming rates', which companies impose on consumers using their mobile phones when outside their home country.
Under the plans, the commission will fix the wholesale rate that an operator can charge a foreign rival which uses its network on the behalf of a customer travelling abroad. It will also cap the retail rates that companies can impose, and put a ceiling on the cost of calls received abroad.
The plan has been a flagship for Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding, and her quest to push mobile phone calls down has already forced changes among telecoms operators.
'For years, mobile roaming charges have remained at unjustifiably high levels, in spite of repeated warnings to the industry,' she said. 'This is why Europe needs to act now.'
Reding wants the new regulations to be in place next year, although some commissioners say they should be phased in over several years. In any case, operators still have some time to adjust because the plans still require approval by the European Parliament and EU governments to go into effect.
With 147 million Europeans using roaming services, the market is estimated to be worth about €8.5 billion a year.
