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Posts Tagged ‘ec’

Termination rates in for 70 percent cut

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

Mobile termination fees are on their way down, with a source telling Reuters that EC Commissioner Viviane Reding is planning to publish draft guidelines that will cut the fees by 70 percent.

According to the source, the changes will come in 2011 and, while the EC won’t mandate any numerical caps, it will specify what charges operators can include as part of termination rates, which are expected to end up around 1.5 to 2.5 eurocents a minute.

Reding says that she expects that as a result of the termination rate cuts, consumers’ tariffs will drop. Seems a little optimistic to me – surely some operators will end up losing money as a result of the termination rate cuts and for those who end up better off, there’s no guarantee that they’ll end up putting that money towards cheaper rates rather than their shareholders’ returns.

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Posted in Operators | Comments

Operators to charge for incoming calls?

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

This doesn’t sound good. According to a number of reports, EC Commissioner Viviane Reding is planning to pare back mobile termination rates from 7p to around 1p. Funnily enough, mobile operators aren’t best pleased and have apparently told Reding that if she goes ahead with the cuts, they might be forced to charge customers to receive incoming calls.

Reding’s spokesman told the Telegraph: “Companies could introduce tariffs that made you pay to receive calls, but most consumers will not tolerate this. They will go elsewhere. This is an empty threat from the mobile phone companies.”

Too right. While operators in other countries might charge incoming call costs as the norm, trying to introduce a similar model in the UK years after the mobile market has matured would be something akin to operator suicide. Thankfully, it sounds like a lot of sabre rattling rather than a serious threat.

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Posted in Operators | Comments

EU to operators: Two weeks to cut roaming SMS costs

Monday, June 16th, 2008

After giving operators numerous warnings to cut the cost of using roaming SMS and data, EC Commissioner Viviane Reding has revealed she’s now going ahead with a plan to cap rates for using data services abroad unless the networks drop their prices voluntarily.

According to Reuters, Reding has given operators two weeks to clean up their act and cut costs. She’ll also start publishing the cost of roaming data services on an EU website from the start of next month. “On the basis of those prices I will then decide if it’s necessary or not to have a regulation proposed,” Reuters quotes Reding as saying.

If history is any guide, expect the European operators to make a lot of noise about how data costs have already come down loads in the last year or two, then cut the cost of data some more when they realise Reding isn’t joking, and then the EC to decide it’s still not enough and bring in the regulation anyway. Good news for anyone texting from aboard, bad news for anyone having to listen to operators whinging for the next few weeks.

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Posted in Mobile Data | Comments

Europe give go-ahead for mobiles on planes

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

After Ofcom decided to allow mobiles on planes last month, the EC said it’s paving the way for more of the same from other European Union member states.

The era of pan-European in-flight mobility will be ushered in by two measures announced by the EC this week: a “Commission Recommendation for a harmonised approach on licensing which will promote mutual recognition between national authorisations for mobile communications services on aircraft” and “a Commission Decision which sets out harmonised technical parameters of onboard equipment for in-flight mobile phone use throughout the EU that will allow member states to recognise each other’s licences for mobile communications on board aircraft without risk to mobile networks on the ground”. The EC will also make sure safety concerns are dealt with by the appropriate bodies.

Interestingly, after the EC has pushed so hard on cutting roaming charges within Europe, it’s remaining mum on how to regulate the cost of connectivity on planes, saying the market is too young for it to interfere and it will be up to the service provider to set pricing. It sounds like we could be in for some expensive calls and texts up there.

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Posted in Mobile Services | Comments

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