Monti gets tough on mobile phone ‘roaming’ costs

Date: 03/10/02

By Peter Chapman

COMPETITION chief Mario Monti is set to escalate his long battle against mobile phone firms that overcharge customers when they use their handsets abroad.

The move follows dawn raids on nine British and German operators - many part of the same company - last July.

Investigators were looking into evidence of collective fixing of consumer retail prices for 'roaming'.

The companies raided included the UK's Vodafone, BT Cellnet and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile.

Commission competition spokeswoman Amelia Torres said warning letters should be sent out 'before the end of the year'.

Firms risk fines of up to 10 of their sales. She refused to say which companies would be targeted.

Monti's probe into roaming followed complaints that phone users were being charged as much as ten times more than the costs of a domestic call when they use their mobiles abroad.

Speaking earlier this year, the anti-trust chief said he wants to ensure British and German subscribers are no longer 'exploited'.

Despite the roaming clamp-down, Monti has also sprung to the defence of the mobile sector with a recent decision that allows cash-strapped firms to share some of the huge costs of installing third generation, or '3G', networks.

He gave his blessing for T-Mobile and MMO2 to share equipment and base stations, provided they continued to compete once the services are running.

In the future, they may even be able to cooperate on 'radio access' for the services, but Monti said he was 'reserving his opinion' on this.

'Provided the necessary safeguards are in place, such cooperation deals can bring benefits for the customer in terms of a faster introduction of new services, more competition and a lesser impact to the environment,' said the commissioner.

Competition Commissioner Mario Monti is set to escalate his long battle against mobile phone firms that overcharge customers when they use their handsets abroad.