Brussels wants deeper cuts in roaming phone charges

(BRUSSELS) - Worried about the high cost of using mobile phones across EU borders, the European Commission wants to further cut roaming charges and, for the first time, cap the price of surfing the Web on the go.

A draft proposal prepared by Europe's competition watchdog calls for a gradual reduction of retail prices for making phone calls and sending text messages while travelling across the 27-nation Union.

The maximum price for making a phone call abroad would drop from 0.39 euros a minute today to 0.32 cents next year and down to 0.24 by 2014, according to the draft obtained by AFP.

Sending an SMS would cost 0.10 euros from next year instead of 0.11 today.

For the first time, a ceiling on the retail price of using mobile data outside one's home country would be set at 0.90 euros per megabyte in July 2012, dropping to 0.70 euros in 2013 and 0.50 euros in 2014..

The roaming cap system, which has existed since 2007, is scheduled to expire next year but the commission has repeatedly said that it wanted to extend it because prices remain high and competition is lacking.