Mobile service providers in Europe might increase domestic call charges

Mobile service providers in Europe might increase domestic call charges

GSM Association has said in a statement that the mobile users in the EU could face higher domestic call charges if the European Union forces telecom companies to limit the costs of international calls.

GSM Association representative Aoife Sexton said in a statement: “It could be foreseen that the rate of the decrease of the domestic tariffs will stall, or stop altogether.”

Sexton added: “Operators would have to sit back and take a good hard look at holistically how they might recoup their charges, and the knock-on effect could be potentially in the domestic market.”

European Parliament is currently discussing a bill which aims to cap the roaming charges for mobile phone calls made abroad within the EU at 40 euro cents per minute for an outgoing call and 15 euro cents per minute for an incoming call.

This could hurt the mobile service providers in the region massively as it would cut the operators’ annual retail revenues from roaming by more than half. The EU believes that the companies are reaping massive profits from inflated prices for calls from one EU nation to another.