Reding sets July 1st deadline for more eurotariffs

ON A staircase outside a GSMA press conference here in Barcelona, EU comms commissioner, Viviane Reding, gave July 1^st 2008 as a deadline for operators to get their acts together.

Ms Reding was very forthright as to the responsibilities for mobile operators to drop their prices for data ´roaming´ (where subscribers use their phones abroad) to a level only just above the rates that apply in the home market.

As a tiny concession, she did note that there´s a big difference between the mature SMS/text messaging market and the fledgling mobile internet and mobile email services currently on offer.

However, she warned that something has to be done now, otherwise prices will kill the promise of the mobile internet.
As a clear warning to the operators, Reding said that she wouldn´t be happy with just a few of the major pan-European operators dropping their prices, she wanted citizens in all 27 EU countries to benefit.

If not wholly satisfied with operators´ actions by July 1^st, she stated that both the European Parliament and the European Council were ready to put regulations into place. µ

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