Scrambled signal

Few things divide European consumers more starkly than the cost of using their mobile phones.

Price differences are natural enough. What worries EU officials is the “ridiculous and shameful gulf” that reflects not just cost differences but divergent pricing power. Across Europe lie some of the industrial world’s fastest networks and some of its worst laggards, some of the cheapest deals and some of the globe’s more punitive rates. And all this in what is supposed to be a seamless European market for 500 million people. Sixteen years after “full liberalisation”, telecoms gives the lie to Europe’s single-market dream. State monopolies have gone but heavily regulated national microcosms remain. Sixty percent of customers are with Europe’s four big operators but in practice their businesses fracture along national lines. Cross-border retail offers are non-existent. Revenues are falling fast. Once imperious national incumbents are under siege; stateless, loosely regulated “over-the-top players” such as Google, Twitter or Facebook are riding their networks while killing the pay-for-calls business model. Executives see a path to salvation: consolidation in national markets.