European service providers are set for a bit of a kick in the pants after an EU official made some bold statements regarding handheld data rates at GSMA this week.
[Viviane Reding, European Commission’s information minister] said: “Sending text messages or downloading data via a mobile phone while in another EU country should not be substantially more expensive for a consumer than sending text messages or downloading data at home. This is the logic of the borderless single market which we in Europe agreed to create already 50 years ago. Higher retail charges abroad must be justified by additional cost of operators, or they will have to disappear.”
To back up the talk, Reding is threatening to impose a cap on wireless data prices that European wireless carriers are allowed to charge, unless they voluntarily drop the rates by July 1st. Bad news for carriers, good news for consumers.