Press Conference by EU Commissioners

Viviane Reding and Meglena Kuneva

The New EU Roaming Rules at a Glance

• Texting abroad: no more than €0.11 per SMS as of 1 July 2009

• Data roaming: anti-”bill shock” measures + wholesale cap at €1 per Megabyte

• Voice roaming: – by 2012, roamed calls abroad will cost no

more than €0.34 per minute for calls made and €0.10 for calls received

– Principle of per second billing for all roaming calls (20% consumer savings)

New EU Roaming Rules: the single market objective

• Making the single market come true on the mobile phone bill of Europe’s 500 million consumers

• Sending text messages or surfing the web via a mobile phone while in another EU country should not be substantially more expensive for consumers than sending text messages or surfing the web at home.

Why does the EU act now?

• In 2007, the European Parliament called on the Commission and national regulators to monitor prices for SMS and data roaming

• “Review clause” in EU Roaming Regulation: In 2008, the Commission must propose whether regulation for these services is required

http://ec.europa.eu/roaming

Current situation - SMS

• Roaming charges unchanged since 2007: SMS average is around 29 cent

• Roamed SMS can cost 10 times higher than texting at home

• No justification for high prices if we look at operators’ real costs (less than 1 cent)

http://ec.europa.eu/roaming

Current situation - SMS

http://ec.europa.eu/roaming

Commission proposal – SMS

• The price per SMS an operator charges another at the wholesale level should not exceed 4 cent

• The charge for an SMS at the retail level for all EU citizens should not exceed 11 cent (excl. VAT)

http://ec.europa.eu/roaming

Voice roaming: One year after

• Prices are up to 60% lower thanks to the EU Roaming Regulation of 2007

• Still, most prices are very close to the maximum allowed ceilings

• No signs of sustainable competition

http://ec.europa.eu/roaming

Commission proposal – voice calls

• Price caps prolonged until 2013• Per minute prices to decrease:

– from 46 cent to 34 cent for calls made (1 July 2012)

– from 22 cent to 10 cent for calls received (1 July 2012)

• Reduction every year by 3 cent• Always as of 1 July

Commission proposal – per second billing

• The “hidden charge”:– Today, consumers pay on average 24%

too much for roamed calls abroad – 19% for calls received abroad

• A single market problem: – Per second billing normal for national calls

• Per second billing to apply: – at the latest after the first 30 seconds– immediately for calls received

“Hidden charges” per country

Current situation – data roaming

• Prices still very high: 5.40 Euro per Megabyte (EU average)

• Data roaming prices range from €0.25 to over €16 per MB

• “Bill shock” and high wholesale charges remain a serious problem

http://ec.europa.eu/roaming

“Bill shocks” are common

http://ec.europa.eu/roaming

Current situation – data roaming

http://ec.europa.eu/roaming

Commission proposal – data

• Improved transparency to inform and empower customers on usage of data services– Basic information to be provided

immediately– Customer to be able to set a

cut-off limit

• Wholesale safeguard cap of €1 per MB

“Roaming II” Regulation - roadmap

• Today: Commission Proposal adopted, transmitted to EP and Council

• Political Agreement in Council: under French presidency

• Adoption: before European Parliament elections (June 2009)

• Entry into Force: 1 July 2009Next Review: 2011

http://ec.europa.eu/roaming

Back up slides

Size of the EU Roaming Market

Market Size and segments(Euro, million)

Voice; 5173.28

SMS; 804.32

Data; 559.15

Impact of the new EU Roaming Rules

• SMS reduction – consumer benefits of over €1.2 billion

• Per-second billing – Consumer gains of nearly €1 billion per year

• Data – consumers to be able to make fully informed choice and volumes expected to increase considerably