Economy
European Union to End Mobile Roaming Charges by July 2014
In a bid to streamline the telecom sector across the 28 nations in the European Union, the EU’s executive arm is looking for banning roaming charges. Customers and travellers will no longer have to pay for incoming calls if they are in other EU countries from July 2014. Two years from that, EU residence may expect complete eradication of roaming charges across the European Union. The idea also proposes making EU-wide calls comparable to long distance calls within a country, thus creating a single telecom market.
Neelie Kroes, The EU commissioner for digital affairs, described the new move as an idea to let people of EU enjoy the same call rates as home, no matter where they are in the European Union. Portraying roaming charges as a “cash cow” for operators and “a disproportionate irritant for travellers”, she stressed on abolishing this irritating practice and allow more EU-wide competition and investment in high speed networks.
The proposal received criticism from many large multinational companies like Vodafone, Orange, Telefónica and BT broadband and phone, saying that end of roaming will cost them €7bn (£5.9bn). Under this new draft, all the networks will be required to provide flat rates to the customers whether they are in the home country or in the other EU country. To achieve this, airline-style alliances will be used in countries where operators do not own a network.
To discourage resistance from the big corporates, the EU commission is proposing that those who will abide by the new rules early will face leaner regulations. For example, they will not be forced to offer customers choice to select operator to make foreign calls. From 2014, customers and travellers will be able to chose a different operator to make calls, send texts or use mobile internet without changing number or SIM, if their own network operator charges more in the foreign countries. Such a step will initiate EU-wide price competition among different companies to provide best rates to the travellers.
It would be a big step for a number of travellers and officers who travel across the European Union for business. High roaming charges leads to high business and travel budget discouraging even the usage of alternatives like Skype due to high internet roaming charges. However, It is not true that the big companies will be in the loss as claimed by them. One telecom market policy in EU will give companies the opportunity to explore more regions and countries and treat them like home market. This will add more subscriber base to the company which has attractive rates and services.
Some more measures would be taken that would discourage telecom companies from blocking certain competitive websites on their network like Skype which reduces the use of calling features provided by the operator. There are plans to harmonize the sales of mobile spectrum across the region too.
Fighting some of the most devastating wars like First and Second world war, European countries were never so close to each other as they are today, thanks to European Union, which has streamlined economy, policies and markets by introducing single currency Euro, easing visa regulations, introducing Schengen and introducing one telecom market. EU has received loads of appreciation but it has also received a number of criticism due to its inability to tackle Eurozone problem and that it differentiates between the west and the east. However, there is no doubt that as long as EU will remain, Europe will not become the epicentre of the possible third world war. We have to see where else in the world can we implement such concept.
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