EU Lawmakers Approve New Price Cap on Text Message
Phone users will pay a maximum of 11 euro cents (14 cents) for sending text messages from another European Union nation starting July 1, down from the current average cost of 28 euro cents (36 cents).
The European Parliament also approved new, lower caps for "roaming" calls that set a ceiling of 43 euro cent (56 cents) per minute for making a call and 19 euro cents (25 cents) for receiving one.
Mobile Internet users could also see cheaper fees as the Parliament fixed a one-euro ($1.29) limit per megabyte on how much operators could charge each other to use their networks.
"Today's vote marks the definite end of the roaming rip-off in Europe," said EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding, who had pushed hard for the lower charges.
"Just in time for the summer holidays, European citizens will now be able to see the single market without borders on their phone bills," she said.
The Parliament vote was the final approval needed for the price caps after EU telecoms ministers said they were in favor.
Telecoms companies' association GSMA said they were unhappy with price regulation and hoped the price caps would expire -- as intended -- in mid-2012. They say regulation could hurt the new investments that have cut mobile prices by more than a third since 2004.
Consumers' group BEUC said it would start pushing in 2011 for the price caps to be extended again.
Text messages are wildly popular in Europe, especially among people under the age of 25. Some 2.5 billion were sent in 2007 at a total cost of 800 million euros ($1 billion).
The cost of sending a message from abroad varies widely in different nations. Latvians on vacation in Spain...
