May 6, 2007
Has Brussels misdialled on mobile roaming?
Intriguing to see how the mobile phone “roaming” law is playing out.
Viviane Reding, EU telecoms commissioner, has made a point of saying that Europeans will pay less for holiday phone calls this summer.
Will the European Commission end up with egg on its face?
To recap: despite massive lobbying by mobile phone operators, everyone accepts that prices will be capped for calls made and received while abroad.
Britain, France and Spain (all home to big mobile phone companies) are the most outspoken critics of the proposal’s structure and say a better deal is needed.
Even if the law is agreed next month as planned, the countries say customers won’t pay less before September or October. Operators need time to adjust, the British, French and Spanish argue.
Was it a mistake for the European Commission to put a timeline on this hugely complex law and build expectations about speedy price cuts?
For Ms Reding, passage of the controversial regulation will be a political victory, whatever the details.
But Brussels has used this law as a high-profile example of the European Union acting on behalf of ordinary citizens and has talked repeatedly of the summer deadline. Imagine the tabloid headlines in July if it lets them down.
Not a mistake - she can always just blame the Member States and the Parliament. Quite right too.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | May 7th, 2007 at 5:04 pm | Report this commentMy comments are on my website (see url).
Posted by: Huib Riethof | May 7th, 2007 at 10:38 pm | Report this commentI wouldnt say ‘quite right too’ so imperiously. These are regulations that are going to effect 450m paying customers and some of the proposals that are currently in the Reg are quite enormous. For example, operators receiving a roaming customer are meant to send a text to that customer showing what price package he/she will pay whilst roaming on their network. How are they meant to know that when that data is not available to them.
Posted by: John Middleton | May 11th, 2007 at 10:54 am | Report this commentAs always, these things are far more complex than they initially seem. The operators have ripped us off for too long but the Commission shouldn’t have placed an unnecessarily short time-frame on teh regulation, putting pressure on all involved to rush something through that might be poorly prepared.
John of course you are right. My comment was really about whether Reding had made a political mistake in putting a target date on the legislation. From the point of view of the Commission I think she’s spot on.
Whether the time pressure has any negative effects on the final outcome or not, I don’t know. But I would still blame MEPs and Member States. After all, they have known this was coming for some time, and months of discussion after the proposal comes out should be sufficient to come to an agreement.
By the way I am sure the regulation will not be perfect; there will inevitably be some undesirable effects.
Posted by: Chris Sherwood | May 11th, 2007 at 11:52 am | Report this comment