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  • EU to cap European SMS roaming rates at 11 Euro cents

    Filed under: Messaging While the United States and Canada are still pondering what to do (if anything) about the rising cost of text messaging, it looks like the European Union has finally decided to put its rather large foot down and set a cap on all texts sent within Europe. According to Reuters, the new maximum rate will be 11 Euro cents, which is quite the bargain considering that, as Mobile Burn points out, a German customer sending a text from Spain now has to pay a hefty 41 Euro cents for the privilege. Under the same European Commission proposal, phone calls will also have to be billed by the second, and competition for accessing the internet abroad will also apparently be "increased," although any further specifics on that point are a bit light at the moment. There's also no word exact word as to when the new rules will go into effect, but previous reports had said it could happen as soon as January. [Via Mobile Burn ] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • EU wants to cap roaming fees for text messages; The iPhone 3G, will it blend?

    > European Union Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding said she wanted to see roaming fees for text messages fall by up to 70 percent. She said she will put forward rules in October to cap charges. Article > U.K. proposes 7 years in prison for sending text messages while driving. Article > Verizon Wireless is publicly advocating the "Cell Tax Fairness Act," sponsored by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The proposed legislation would restrict state and local governments from imposing a new discriminatory tax on mobile phone services for five years and is also supported by CTIA. The legislation was introduced on April 15. Release And Finally... The new iPhone is destroyed in a blender. See the action here .

  • EU seeks to slash texting costs by more than half

    EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding has outlined plans to cut the costs of cross-border text messages by more than 50 percent. According to the EU proposal, cross-border text fees will drop from their current 29 cents (46 cents U.S.) to between 11 and 15 cents (17 to 23 cents U.S.). The legislation is expected to be introduced in October and may come into law as early as summer 2009. Reding had previously instituted a July 1 deadline for operators to either cut costs of their own accord or face legislative restrictions. She argues the 2.5 billion text messages sent annually by customers roaming in EU member states cost more than 10 times the amount spent to send a message locally. The Commission has also said it will seek an end to "bill shock" by calling for greater transparency on mobile web roaming fees. Europe's mobile operators are vehemently opposed to the legislation, warning that regulation is limiting their capital spending and profit margins. The GSM Association global trade body says carriers' capital spending has already fallen from 13 percent of revenues in 2005 to 11 percent a year ago and could fall even further, arguing the drop contradicts Reding's claim that roaming services are a source of excessive profits. The GSMA adds that some operators have already made substantial cuts to their data roaming fees, with T-Mobile UK slashing charges by 80 percent and Vodafone cutting its price per megabyte by 45 percent. For more on the EU proposal: - read this TimesOnline article Related articles: EU to launch investigation into ringtone sites EU launches inquiry into mobile data roaming fee

  • 25 percent of European households shun landlines for mobiles

    Filed under: Studies Though just over 10 percent of wireless Europeans are allegedly riding the 3G wave, the picture's looking a lot prettier when you compare the adoption rate of mobiles to their tethered equivalents. A survey commissioned by the European Union suggests that roughly 24 percent of households have moved exclusively to cellphones to take care of their telecom needs -- while Finland, Nokia's home turf, came in at a staggering 61 percent. In general, former Eastern Bloc countries are racking up a much higher incidence of mobile-only behavior, apparently because governments have found it easier to concentrate on building out wireless networks rather than a landline infrastructure that could see limited use (in-home broadband excepted, though that's another story altogether). [Via textually.org ] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • EU operators jack up roaming fees

    Operators in Europe have increased the price of roaming calls coming into the European Union by as much as 163 percent, a move they says research firm Informa Telecoms & Media, is necessary to Read more...
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  • EU Wants Mobile Phone Use Allowed on Airplanes

    Mobile phone users around the world are waiting anxiously to hear the outcome of the European Union’s plan to allow mobile phone use on their airplanes. Their plan, which at this point stands to be approved on Monday, would allow cell phone users to be allowed to make and receive phone calls during their flight, with [...]

  • European Commission gives go-ahead for in-flight mobile phone calls in Europe

    European jetsetters just got another step closer to getting their cellphone-calling fix while strapped into that airplane seat at cruising altitude. The European Commission has just approved the use of mobile phones in airplanes over European airspace. Following on the UK's OfCom announcement that in-flight calling is good to go in Great Britain, the executive [...]

  • Nokia's NAVTEQ acquisition draws probe from the EU

    Filed under: Handsets , Nokia , Misc It may have won approval from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and NAVTEQ shareholders alike, but it looks like the EU's European Commission needs a bit more time to think over Nokia's acquisition of the company, and it's now launched an "in-depth" probe into the matter. According to Reuters, the Commission said that the " proposed merger raises serious doubts with regards to ... competition concerns," although it was quick to add that the decision to open the inquiry does not prejudge the result of the probe. Among other things, the probe will apparently attempt to asses whether whether the purchase would affect the cost of maps for other companies providing navigation services on cellphones. If all of this has a familiar ring, it should, because it wasn't all that long ago that the EU launched a similar probe into TomTom's similar acquisition of map-maker Tele Atlas. Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  • The EU on the visibility of RFID

    The EU is conducting a new online consultancy on privacy, data protection and information security principles in RFID applications. I am happy to see that in Article 5 they begin to address the invisible nature of RFID readers in public space: “RFID applications can technically operate without any visible or otherwise perceivable action [...]” They go further [...]

  • EU turns its attention to per-minute billing

    Filed under: Misc Having just come off a win in the international roaming department, the European Union is looking for other ways to cut the wireless bills of its many citizens -- and it thinks it knows exactly where to start. The practice of rounding up to the next nearest minute when billing calls is common to a great many carriers across the globe, and the EU says it could be costing folks an average of 20 percent more minutes per month than they're actually using. It's not prepared to take action against carriers just yet, but it says it'll "watch developments very closely" and decide what to do -- if anything -- by the end of the year. [Via textually.org ] Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  • Germany, UK, Netherlands unhappy with EU's selection of DVB-H

    Filed under: Multimedia Despite a recent drive to lock down DVB-H as the European Union's single, unified standard for mobile television, a handful of member nations are starting to fight back. On the surface, arguments within the EU's hallowed chambers appear to center around concerns that DVB-H's selection is arbitrary (and when we say "arbitrary" we mean "heavily backed by Europe's own Nokia") and that the powers that be should let the market shake itself out; in reality, though, a large bit of the contention likely has to do with the fact that Germany, the UK, and others have all already kicked off systems using the rival DMB standard . The EU wants to see mobile television blessed with the same overwhelming standardization that blessed GSM back in the day -- preferably in time for next year's soccer and Olympic games -- but we've gotta feel for the companies and countries that have already invested heavily in other networks, too. MediaFLO , what say you? [Via mocoNews ] Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

  • DVB-H to become European mobile video standard

    Filed under: Misc The European mobile phone community was rocked by the news today that DVB-H (or Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld) is set to become the new standard for mobile TV across the Union. The technology -- a superset of DVB-T -- has been spearheaded by Nokia , and this move is meant to help widen the system's audience. Though the move has been opposed by some EU states, such as Germany and Britain, the standard is being pushed through. "DVB-H will be published by the Commission in the list of official EU standards," said an EU executive, adding that, "As a result, all EU Member States will have to support and encourage the use of DVB-H for the launch of mobile TV services, thus avoiding market fragmentation and allowing economies of scale and accordingly affordable services and devices." So much for our fledgling standard, DVB-X (the X is for extreme). Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
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