Brussels, 17/01/2008 (Agence Europe) - The roaming regulation has generally been well implemented in all European Union member states, with a high level of conformity, according to the first benchmark report the European Regulators' Group (ERG) published on 17 January 2008. The report covers the 6 months from April to September 2007 and looks at 150 telecoms operators across all EU member states. This is too short a period of time to be able to draw general conclusions, but the figures already illustrate the regulation's positive impact on average roaming costs. The costs of sending and receiving a mobile telephone call while travelling in another country have dropped in all 27 EU member states, without operators attempting to cover this fall in income by increasing the prices of other products, explains the European Commission. The operators meet the required transparency targets, but the Commission regrets that consumers are still invoiced by the minute rather than the actual time of the roaming call. A consumer phoning for one minute and ten seconds, for example, is invoiced for two full minutes. The difference between invoiced time and the time actually spent on the phone is around 20% in retail prices,
explains the report.
The Commission agrees with the ERG that it is important to understand the average real amount invoiced to consumers, explaining that it will be looking at this when preparing its end-of-year report. The ERG report notes that the prices for text messages, downloading and sending data while roaming, none of which are covered by legislation, remain high and vary from one member state to the next. The Commission will be deciding at the end of the year whether to introduce legislation to cover these services.
Paul Rübig, Malcolm Harbour and Giles Chichester hail progress,
which they hope will continue
At the EPP-ED, Austrian MEP Paul Rübig, rapporteur on roaming, British MEP Malcolm Harbour, EPP-ED coordinator on the EP's internal market committee, and British MEP Giles Chichester, chair of the EP's industry and research committee, welcomed the positive impact of the regulation on roaming rates. Rübig and Harbour say the regulation is an example of the value-added that the EU can provide to people's daily life.
The shrouds of mystery that used to cover international roaming and which used to spoil people's holidays no longer exist, said Rübig, pleased also with the way the regulation is increasing price transparency. He explains in his report that most operators now have transparent pricing.
Malcolm Harbour said the price indexes were encouraging but much more needs to be done and he hoped there would be further positive reports in the next report. Giles Chichester hailed the way the regulation was filling gaps in competition on the telecoms market, but notes that much more can be expected. (I.L.)