sabe quanto facturou em roaming no último ano???
É só para ficar com uma ideia das perdas para estas operadoras. (provavelmente o efeito já foi descontado
New EU roaming plan is a straitjacket - operators
14/06/2006 15:42
BRUSSELS, June 14 (Reuters) - The European Commission's revised plan to cut the cost of using mobile phones abroad will put operators in a straitjacket and lead to curbs on some customers, an industry group said on Wednesday.
EU Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding will formally table the proposals next month, and the European Parliament and member states have the final say.
The EU executive said on Monday it has amended its original draft to impose price caps on what operators can charge each other, and on what users should pay.
It is one of Brussels' most popular moves in years, ending a major bane of travellers -- big bills for mobile calls abroad -- but the industry said the amended proposal is still flawed.
"Following widespread criticism from industry, national regulators and politicians, the Commission has replaced its first flawed proposal with a different, equally ill thought-out scheme," said Rob Conway, chief executive of the GSM Association which represents more than 680 mobile operators from 213 countries across the world.
European operators have announced big price cuts which will cut roaming tariffs, or the cost of using a phone abroad, by an average of 40 percent for more than 70 percent of travellers, the association said.
"Unlike the regulatory straitjacket envisioned by the European Commission, these voluntary cuts allow mobile operators to continue to follow their own pricing strategies, tailored to their own national markets and customer needs," it said.
The Commission also wants to scrap a charge on receiving calls abroad.
"The forced abolition of the 'receiving party pays' convention for what is effectively a call forwarding service could mean that some operators would have to restrict access to roaming altogether," the association said. ((Reporting by Huw Jones, Editing by Margaret Orgill; Brussels newsroom +32 2 287 6817,
huw.jones@reuters.com))