EU presses hard for telecoms to lower roaming charges

The European Commission has already called the providers to lower the rates on their own, but has also warned it might take serious steps if the operators fail to follow the EU's suggestions. The implementation of a regulation on roaming charges (which is currently being prepared) will be reviewed in two years to check if the providers did not transfer lost revenues to other services to make up for the decrease. According to the EU's proposition, an overseas call to Poland should not exceed EUR 0.60 per minute, local calls - EUR 0.40, while incoming calls from Poland EUR 0.2. Orange (TP) officially supports the idea. Polkomtel (Plus) and PTC (Era) are more skeptical. The EU is pressing hard for the changes and goes even further and says it might also monitor mobile data transfer rates in the future. (Puls Biznesu, p. 9) J.L.