Brussels officials eye SMS costs

The European Commission is reviewing prices for mobile messages and data transfers in other countries than that of a given telecom operator and is planning to cut them, Portuguese publication Jornal de noticias informs, quoted by Romanian monitoring agency Rador. Brussels authorities have noted that the law approved last summer regarding cuts to mobile call tariffs was accepted by all major telecom players on the European market.

On the other hand, a report covering April – September 2007, which has landed on Commissioner Viviane Reding’s table, warns that phone calls tariffs are applied per minute and not per second. The difference between what EU clients are using and what they are paying reaches 20% of the cost.

The document is also noting that message and data transmission prices are still high and vary considerably between member states.

Telecom Commissioner Viaviane Reding declared that a decision regarding SMS costs will be taken by the end of the year.