Prices for voice, SMS and data roaming to be cut down to level of national tariffs by 2014

A new EU roaming regulation is expected to be announced this Wednesday 6 July to resume the fight against high mobile phone prices.

The European Commission will propose to cap voice, SMS and data roaming at levels similar to national tariffs by 2014, as well as end the price gap between national and cross-border mobile services.

The proposed rules will introduce innovative ways to structurally reform the supply of mobile services, proposes to slash the wholesale prices that operators pay to use each other's networks, implement measures to enable new "virtual" operators to enter the market, and much more.

Before being applied, the regulation will have to pass the scrutiny of the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers.

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Download the legal text of the EU roaming proposal

Pushing a standardised rail IT booking system for EU

The European Commision launched yesterday a new regulation on the technical specification for interoperability relating to the subsystem 'telematics applications for passenger services' of the trans-European rail system. The document underlines that ticket details and reserations will be standardised, allowing information exchanges between rail companies and ticket vendors. Besides, the regulation requires operators to make timetabling open to the public and forces rail partners to share fare information.
A second regulation will be presented next year to standardise rail operators computer systems and practices to facilitate data transfer among them.

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