Roaming cuts trigger price war
A price war has been triggered in the UK over mobile roaming charges, with at least four major operators joining the fray in what looks like a pre-emptive strike against proposed European regulation.
Following Orange’s roaming cuts last week, Vodafone on Monday announced its commitment to cutting European roaming charges by 40 per cent. The reduction will be based on the average roaming prices from last summer and will be implemented by April 2007 at the latest, the company said in a statement.
The initiative builds on the introduction of Vodafone’s Passport service launched last year. According to Vodafone – the UK’s fourth largest network in terms of subscriber numbers – there are already more than 6 million Passport customers across Europe with 100,000 more signing up every week.
Available on both contract and prepay, Vodafone Passport allows customers to pay their UK rates abroad for a one off connection fee of ВЈ0.75 per call.
T-Mobile – the UK’s second largest operator – made its own announcement today, launching a flat rate roaming service across Europe and North America, which it believes will cut roaming charges by between 45 and 54 per cent.
From June, T-Mobile will charge customers in 29 European countries and North America ВЈ0.55 per minute to make and receive calls overseas on both postapid and prepaid plans.
A spokeswoman for T-Mobile said that pressure from the EC has resulted in the operator announcing its roaming cuts earlier than it expected too. “We’re introducing cuts now, before they are enforced through legislation,” she said.
The UK’s largest operator, O2, is believed to be planning its own flat rate roaming tariff to be launched in time for the summer.
Orange kicked off what is shaping up to be a significant battle among the leading operators, a move British consumers will no doubt welcome. Last week Orange announced a tariff package geared at reducing roaming costs by up to 25 per cent when both making and receiving calls overseas.
Starting June, Orange promised that subscribers will pay the same rate in any of the 25 EU Member States, irrespective of the network they are receiving calls from.
Legislation from the European Commission to enforce roaming cuts is expected to be implemented by the summer of next year, and the Commission said it plans to adopt a proposal for the new regulation before the summer.
The proposal has drawn fire from a number of industry players. An executive group comprising members of mobile operators including Vodafone and TeliaSonera criticised the plans championed by Viviane Reding, EU Information Society and Media Commissioner in a visit to Brussels last week.
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Tags: O2, Orange, Regional, T-Mobile, UK, Vodafone