Reding warned over text-charges crusade

MEPs are concerned that Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding’s moves to reduce the fees charged for sending text messages from abroad will inflame the debate on telecoms reform.

Reding this week (11 February) warned mobile operators to reduce voluntarily the fees that they charge for data roaming by 1 July or face regulatory action. Data roaming charges are the fees that are charged to a mobile phone user when they send or receive text or other data while abroad.

Reding’s warning echoed last year’s controversial action on the roaming fees that are charged for mobile calls made or received abroad. The end result was an EU-wide law imposing caps on call roaming charges.

Catherine Trautmann, the French Socialist MEP who is preparing the European Parliament’s response to Reding’s proposals for reforming telecoms regulation, said: "It is a consumer-friendly subject. This is all well and good, but must not detract from the main debate on the telecoms package and trap the various stakeholders. The Commission must keep an eye on the political schedule."

The telecoms package, said Trautmann, should remain Reding’s main priority.

A source familiar with regulatory circles said that the data roaming issue would be used later this year to justify the establishment of an EU-wide supervisory body, a measure included in Reding’s telecoms reform package. The implic-ation is that the persistence of high data roaming charges shows the weakness of national regulators.

Reding last year identified reductions in data roaming fees as a key test for European regulators to show their ability to act independently. In a bid to measure up to the commissioner’s expectations, the European Regulators Group last month unveiled a report highlighting excessively high roaming charges throughout the EU for sending data.

MEPs are concerned that Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding’s moves to reduce the fees charged for sending text messages from abroad will inflame the debate on telecoms reform.