If all politics is local this one indicates the issues local to Europe. Europe is about to go on holiday. As a matter of fact for the northern climates July is the month, the southern go in August. So the law to reduce the cost of roaming for both SMS and Voice will be loved by all starting now. Which is why it went into effect yesterday.
Charges for roaming in Europe have been high regardless of whether you are roaming on the service provider that you already have in your home country. O2/Telefonica, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone are brands that span across Europe but, charges when you leave your own country do not take into account your affiliation. I feel for the EU dealing with providing legislative advice to their member countries. Its not like the US where the EU has any ability to mandate local law. The EU has allowed the mergers and acquistions by o2/Telifonica, Vodafone, Orange, DT, etc of the Eastern bloc carriers without making these kind of demands initially. Then again the #1 tax payer in the new members is telecom so maybe their just was not enough clout.
Viviane Reding at the ECC has been a long time advocate about the high prices of carriers, and is very Skype friendly as she as held them up to make her points about the traditional carriers.
The biggest change will be the way that consumers see their bills because the prices are rounded up to minutes but on seconds. The large carriers say they have already complied with the law but the commission says it intend to continue the analysis and may add future guidelines next year.
Of course the issue right now may not be SMS or Voice but the web, and with revenues in decline the migration to LTE for many of the carriers may face some financial challenges.
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