Brussels to move against per-minute phone tariffs 

The European telecoms regulatory body (ERG) published, on 17 January, its first report to assess the impact of the EU's recent roaming regulation, which introduced a cap on prices for phone calls made across EU borders.

The report estimates the discrepancy between the billed minutes for a phone call and the actual time of the conversation at 20%. "A customer may only use twenty seconds of a call but be charged for a full minute", explains a European Commission press release issued to comment on the results.

The calculation is resticted to roaming calls, constituting a relatively marginal share of the average user's bill. However, charges for roaming calls are becoming increasingly signficant and are currently the only part of the bill that the EU is allowed to regulate. General mobile phone charges are left to market forces due to the Commission's assessment that there is sufficient competition in the sector.

However, in June 2007, the Commissioner in charge of telecoms, Viviane Reding, was able to impose regulatory measures on roaming due to its intrinsic cross-border nature and the exorbitant charges often applied. 

Now, the Commission may do the same for tariff calculation, SMS and data-roaming services, which are presently excluded from EU rules. The Commission hopes the move could trigger debates and pro-consumer measures in the member states.

As a first move in this direction, the ERG (European Regulatory Group) requested EU operators to provide "both actual and billed minutes" for future data collection, which began in October 2007 and will last until March 2008. The second assessment report is set to be published in July.

"The Commission agrees with the ERG that it is important to understand the actual average charged to consumers and will consider this issue in its end-of-year report" (when a review of the current regulation is expected), said a Commission press release. 

However, it remains to be seen whether all operators will be able to collect such data. Due to alleged technological limitations, several operators are currently unable to give actual figures and rely on estimations.

The report, which gathers data collected before and immediately after the introduction of the EU roaming regulation (between April and September 2007), shows a price fall in the sectors capped by the Commission, in particular for phone calls made or received abroad.

Conversely, the charges remain stable or increased where not capped, as for SMS and data. "I remain concerned about prices for SMS and data-roaming services. We will watch developments very closely and respond appropriately by the end of 2008", said Commissioner Reding in a statement.