The European Commission says mobile phone users in Europe are often charged 20% more than the actual time of their calls because they are charged by the minute.
After imposing caps on mobile roaming rates earlier this year, the EU body said it was turning its attention to the costly practice of charging by the minute.
'The Commission is concerned that customers are being charged on a per-minute basis instead of for the actual time of the call,' it said in a statement.
As an example, it said that although a customer may call for only 20 seconds the person can be charged for a full minute.
'At the retail level, the difference between billed and actual minutes appears to be typically around 20%,' the Commission said.
It said that it would consider the problem more closely in a report due at the end of the year, which will also focus on the cost of text messages and international data services. EU Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding has raised the prospect of setting caps on text messages and data services if her calls to cut costs are left unanswered.
'I remain concerned about prices for SMS and data roaming services,' Reding said. 'We will watch developments very closely and respond appropriately by the end of 2008.'
In mid-2007, the Commission forced operators to bring the price of making mobile phone calls while abroad below an EU-wide ceiling after finding wide variations among companies' offers across Europe.
