Category Archives: Press

March 28, 2012 · 2:44 pm

[Press Release] Citizens’ Initiative welcomes EU deal for lower roaming costs

Yesterday evening, the EU lawmakers European Parliament and the Council of Ministers managed to broker a deal that will allow mobile phone, smart phone and tablet users to enjoy much lower costs when using their devices abroad. The deal came after some hard discussions between the two institutions. The citizens’ initiative “Europeans for Fair Roaming” that has been working on this issue warmly welcomes the agreement, even though it hoped for a fast reduction in prices.

According to the deal, prices for roaming will be lowered to 29ct/min for calls and 70ct/MB for internet access in July 2012 and will keep going down to 19ct/min for calls and 20ct/MB for internet access by 2014. In addition, users will be enabled to choose a different operator for roaming which should bring about more competition.

Consumer interests defended

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Tagged as agreement, Council of the European Union, data roaming, deal, European Parliament, European Union, Fair Roaming

March 16, 2012 · 1:19 pm

[Press Release] European Parliament and Council at odds over roaming

At a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the EU with representatives from the European Parliament and the European Commission, some national ministers stated that they are against lower prices for roaming in the EU.

According to reports, the Council does not want to follow the proposal of the European Parliament to further lower prices. Instead, ministers are defending the interests of big telecommunications companies and their practice of charging extreme fees for using mobile phones and tablets abroad. In addition, the Council wants to limit influence of the Parliament in the implementation of further rules through the so-called Comitology procedure. Continue reading →

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Tagged as Council, expensive, Fair Roaming, governments, rip-off, roaming

February 28, 2012 · 12:28 pm

[Press Release] Welcome improvements but prices could be lower

The European citizens’ Initiative “Europeans for Fair Roaming” welcomes the new proposal of the European Parliament to lower roaming charges in Europe but remains committed that prices could be lower. The European Parliament today voted on amendments to the newest push by the EU against the high costs of using mobile phones abroad.

In their proposal, parliamentarians propose to lower costs for roaming calls to 15ct per minute and for internet access to 20ct per Megabyte (or 200€ per Gigabyte) until 2014. While those prices are still higher than what would have been appropriate according to the European telecom regulator BEREC, they are an improvement over older proposals by the European Commission. Continue reading →

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Tagged as Angelika Niebler, European Parliament, European Union, expensive, ITRE, Neelie Kroes, roaming, vote

February 7, 2012 · 6:04 pm

[Press Release] The EU must put an end to high roaming charges!

Europe’s millions of smartphone customers will continue to face rip-off data roaming prices unless Europe’s institutions take real action now.

Europe’s politicians and institutions have a matter of weeks to take action over high data roaming prices or consumers risk a decade of rip-off prices simply for using their smartphones abroad.
The European Parliament’s draft proposal will still leave data roaming charges at over 25x domestic prices.
Europeans for Fair Roaming calls on Europe’s politicians to put an end to data roaming fear by voting for fair roaming prices that protect Europe’s smartphone customers, not punish them. Continue reading →