The European Parliament is to vote on whether roaming costs for text messages should be capped.

The cost of sending a message is expected to eventually fall by 60% from an average of 23 pence to 9 pence.

Voice calls would fall from 36 to 27 pence a minute and customers would be able to set limits on data downloads.

A reluctant mobile phone industry first had limits on its roaming charges imposed by the EU in September 2007.

However, those applied only to voice calls, not those for texting or browsing the internet.

Mobile phone companies were limited to charging a maximum of around 34 pence a minute for making calls, and 17 pence to receive a call.

This is now set to be cut again, if EU Commissioner for telecommunications Viviane Reding’s plans go through.

Customers downloading data would then be able to set a maximum cost level before their service cuts out.

Read the fully story in BBC here.

With Viviane Reding, EU telecoms commissioner, poised to propose a new round of price caps this month, mobile operators claim their capital spending has already slipped from 13% of revenues in 2005 to 11% last year – and could fall further.

The GSM Association – the global trade body representing more than 750 GSM mobile phone operators – citing data from a study by management consultants, says the industry’s return on capital employed was as low as 7% in 2007 or less than half that of other significant sectors such as steel and software.

Sources said this gives the lie to Reding’s claim that it is making excessive profits from “roaming” services in the EU.

Read the full stiry in the Guardian here.

EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding has accused continental governments of lagging on telecom advancements that could be used to fuel European economies. “It is worrying that in ICT research, Europe continues to lag behind its competitors, investing about half as much as the US,” she said in a presentation, urging governments “not to shy away from cross-border competition in the telecom sector.”

Reding said that the impact of ICT on European productivity growth has fallen over the past decade and lashed out at economic reform programs that “fail to give a new impetus to information society policies or to cover drivers of growth such as the convergence of digital networks, content and devices.”
Said Reding, “Only through stronger investment in ICT research and effective cross-border competition will we ensure that the great potential of ICT is used to lift our competitive performance across the economy.”