Roaming deal means more to EU than telcos

In a recent pamphlet trumpeting the achievements of the European Union, one of the top arguments put forward by the European Commission was the EU’s long-running policy to cut the cost of mobile phones use among international travelers.

Though the price of roaming is but a small part of Europeans’ holiday budgets, the issue has been the subject of repeated regulations since 2007, when caps first appeared for voice calls. The agreement brokered on March 28 extends price caps on cross-border phone calls to data usage and further lowers the price for voice calls. The announcement by Neelie Kroes, EU telecoms commissioner, that an agreement had been reached was typical of the discourse between the EU and operators over roaming in the past five years. “Consumers are fed up with being ripped off by high roaming charges,” she said. For all the bluster around the issue, European telecoms groups say privately that fighting roaming price cuts is scarcely a priority when they lobby EU policy makers.