moneysupermarket.com: Preliminary deal on cutting roaming charges

Commenting on the EU and members of the European Parliament reaching a preliminary deal on cutting mobile roaming charges, Rob Barnes, head of mobile phones at moneysupermarket.com, said:

"Once again the EU appears to have made significant progress, however the cost of calling to and from European countries remains unfair. The average cost of making a mobile call in the UK is between 3p and 10p per minute when on a contract, yet calling home from another EU state will be up to 34p.

"The new deal looks great when you compare it to existing costs of between 55p and 94p per minute but, as usual, the EU seems to have backed down when faced with stiff opposition from UK and European operators.

"Networks are hiding behind the defence of having to pay 'other' European operators to carry calls in the relevant countries, yet providers such as T Mobile and Deutsche Telekom are the same company, as are Orange and France Telecom.

"Costs will be forced down over time but it seems we are a long way from fair call charges throughout Europe. My concern is operators will offset reduced European call costs with increases in other areas.

"This, of course, only covers EU member countries so if you are travelling to non-EU states make sure you check the cost of calls."