25 September 2008
Plans to cut the cost of cross-border calls for mobile phone users in Europe have been criticised by regulators in the UK. According to Ofcom and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), capping charges could lead to bigger bills for those who receive the calls, the BBC reports. The European Commission wants to slash the fees charged by European mobile phone operators for handling each other's calls by 70%. But in a joint statement, BERR and Ofcom argued that mobile operators may impose higher costs on people receiving cross-border calls to offset the losses. They said this could come as a disadvantage to people on low incomes who make a conscious effort to spend less on their mobile phones, in particular those with pay-as-you-go tariffs. Earlier this month, the BBC reported claims made by Vodafone that if the EU reform proposals are given the go ahead and operators are forced to raise fees to make up the shortfall, as many as 40 million European mobile phone users could switch off their handsets.