The Commission estimates that 2.5 billion text messages in the EU are sent from abroad every year, with prices much higher than at national level. To address this, the commissioner will confirm at a conference in Brussels today (15 July) that "regulation of SMS roaming is required both at wholesale and at retail level to bring down consumer prices," according to the draft speech seen by EurActiv.
Retail prices are those directly paid by mobile users. The Commission reckons that current tariffs for SMS sent abroad are up to 10 times higher than fees for domestic text messages. The cheapest roamed text messages are offered in Latvia and in Luxembourg, while the highest tariffs hit Belgian users (up to 80 eurocents per roamed SMS), the Dutch (up to 75 eurocents) and the British (up to 50 eurocents). Commissioner Reding will call this situation "a rip-off of consumers".
Figures from the European Regulators Group (ERG), which brings together EU national telecoms regulators, say retail prices for SMS roaming should be capped between 11 and 15 eurocents from the current EU average of 29 eurocents (according to the Commission's calculation: operators say 28 eurocents). Other figures from the Danish telecoms regulator NITA suggest that the price of SMS roaming should be 4.2 eurocents.
"The ERG's opinion and the Danish study will play an important role in the Commission's final decision on the level of regulation," Commissioner Reding will say, announcing that a revised roaming regulation should be proposed in early autumn 2008 so it can be adopted by all the EU institutions before the election of the new European Parliament in June 2009. Capping SMS roaming has already attracted the support of several MEPs and various national delegations in the EU Council (EurActiv 13/06/08).
Mobile operators oppose both figures. A spokesperson for the GSMA (the global association of mobile telecoms operators) told EurActiv that the Danish data are "not relevant for an EU-wide market," while the ERG figures are only conclusions and do not stem from an independent study.
But the Commission also plans to cap wholesale prices, which operators charge one another when a consumer sends an SMS to a different network to his own. This is considered by many to represent an indirect fee paid by consumers. The reference limit to be indicated by Reding is the one suggested by the ERG, between four and eight eurocents per roamed SMS. A similar initiative is underway on so-called mobile termination rates (MTRs), a key source of revenue for operators (EurActiv 25/06/08).
The commissioner will instead adopt a less tough stance on data roaming, which is becoming increasingly common with the spread of smartphones that allow easy and fast internet connections. She will accept the ERG's suggestions that "the market should be closely monitored over the next few weeks before taking a final decision". A decision on caps on retail data roaming will thus be delayed, but it is still not clear if Reding will immediately propose caps on wholesale tariffs.
What she will certainly ask for is the fast implementation of a new transparency initiative aimed at avoiding so-called "bill-shocks" that hit some consumers after surfing the Web on their mobile from abroad. In the worst such cases, bills have reached thousands of euros.
