The elimination of roaming fees across the EU could be a reality with the draft legislation that E.U. Digital Agenda Commissioner Ms Neelie Kroes has prepared for a “real telecoms single market”.
Mobile users across the European Union face huge price differences for the same services. The biggest price difference is in domestic mobile calls a 774% cost difference between Lithuania, the cheapest country, and Netherlands, the most expensive.
These price differences cannot be explained by differences in quality, differences in the cost to provide the service, or by differences between countries in consumer purchasing power.
There are much smaller price differentials in other categories of basic goods and services in the European single market. For example a liter of milk can be bought for between €0.69 and €0.99 wherever they are in the EU, a price difference of 43%. An occasional purchase like an iPad is subject to only an 11% price difference across the EU
Orange estimates the drop in roaming tariffs would dent the group's margin by $395 million.
Meanwhile telecoms groups are trying to shift blame for their poor operational performances to the regulators. “They are literally complaining about peanuts and trying to use EU regulation as padding for their own management challenges,” says one official.
Ms Kroes proposals will be ready by September, while the whole package is expected to be ready by Easter 2014.
Well, since communications bring people together, let’s create a single cost- and spectrum- telecoms market, or?
The Digital Agenda Scoreboard assesses progress with respect to the targets set out in the Digital Agenda.