Brussels, 20/04/2000 (Agence Europe) - A study published last month by the ECTA, an association of telecommunications operators, considers that fixed telephone calls towards mobile phones are overcharged. Prices are 40-50% above the costs of usual calls by mobile phone. The total weight of this overload is evaluated at over EUR 4.5 billion annually. ECTA, whose members include MCI Worldcom and British Telecom, mainly complains about the high costs in France, Spain, Sweden, Germany and Holland. This situation represents one of the major brakes on market development for mobile telephony.
The spokesman's service for Commissioner Liikanen recalled that this problem will be taken up in a package of formal proposals on telecommunications to be presented end May.