Emergency Response and Wireless Location Systems     by Manlio Allegra       Home         Topics: Main | ServiceProvider | LTE | 3G | WiMax | HSDPA | IMS | ICDMA | GSM | Silicon for Wireless | Fixed Wireless |  Start-ups | People | Europe | China | Japan | Latin America | India | Wireless Start-up Directory | Links & Resources | Archive   European Parliament Reaches Agreement to Lower Data Roaming Charges The European Parliament, through a vote in its Industry Committee, agreed to the European Commission's proposals to reduce, as of 1 July, consumer roaming charges for sending text messages and downloading data in the EU. In September 2008, the Commission proposed setting a limit of EUR 0.11 per roamed SMS in the EU (excluding VAT) At present, SMS roaming charges in the EU are on average EUR 0.28 per roamed SMS and can go up to over EUR 0.80 in some countries. The data roaming charges (the cost for surfing the web or downloading data via a mobile connection abroad) will also be reduced. To pave the way for lower consumer charges, the Industry Committee voted in favour of a cap on inter-operator charges of EUR 0.50 per megabyte of roamed data. The Commission had proposed such a cap, but at EUR 1 per megabyte. The Parliament's lead Committee on the new roaming legislation also endorsed measures to enhance the transparency of roaming charges to eliminate the risk of "bill shocks" for data roaming. Finally the Industry Committee voted for an obligation of operators to charge roamed calls by the second from the first second of a mobile call abroad (Commission proposal: from the 31st second). The Commission had identified that consumers currently pay around 20% too much for roamed calls abroad because of imprecise billing methods. "Yesterday's vote in the European Parliament is very good news for consumers all over Europe. In view of the current economic downturn, the Parliament is right in wanting to strengthen the purchasing power of European consumers as of this summer, which will encourage them to make even more use of their mobile phones", said Viviane Reding, the EU's Telecoms Commissioner, who had initiated the new roaming legislation. http://www.europa.eu 10-Mar-09     No video on this topic yet.. contact us to present your views. Recent Broadband Wireless News Alcatel-Lucent Acquires OpenPlug, Extending its Application Enablement Strategy 9/1/2010 Clearwire Offers Pay-As-You-Go Mobile Broadband, $5/Day 8/30/2010 NSN Partners with Telefónica on Smartphone Experience Lab 8/30/2010 Ceragon Notes Mobile Backhaul Order from Leading Indian Carrier 8/30/2010 SK Telecom Selects ALU's MPLS-TP Packet Optical Backhaul 8/27/2010 AT4 Wireless Establishes LTE Test Lab in Taiwan 8/26/2010 Chile's Movistar Upgrades with NSN's HSPA+ 8/26/2010 Malaysia's Maxis Selects Huawei for FTTH 8/26/2010 List of Carriers Planning LTE Deployment Tops 100 8/26/2010 Telia Launches Commercial LTE in Gothenburg 8/25/2010 California Works with Sprint on First Mobile Alert System 8/25/2010 WSJ: Corporate America Adopting Apple's iPad 8/24/2010 Telecom Italia Tests LTE in Turin 8/24/2010 Virgin Mobile USA Offers $40 Unlimited Prepaid Mobile Broadband 8/24/2010 Tata Teleservices selects NSN for 3G 8/23/2010 > More news...     Search  this site   Search the Web   Get Your Column Published Emergency Response and Wireless Location Systems by Manlio Allegra Interview: NSN's Sue Spradley on LightSquared's Wholesale Mobile Data Paradigm by Sue Spradley Mobile Backhaul Transition Requires New Testing by Joe Zeto Cybersecurity Requires Public/Private Coalition by Greg Oslan A Rethinking of Cloud Services and Network Architecture by Jim Theodoras Delivering Scalable Video Solutions <br><i> Advantages of SVC-Optimized QoS</i> by Andy Singleton   E-mail Newsletter Subscribe Now