Viviane Reding, the EU Telecoms Commissioner has surprised the industry with statements made in a newspaper interview, suggesting that US style call charges for mobile phone users in Europe may be on the way.
The European Union's telecoms chief is ready to accept mobile telephone users having to pay charges for accepting calls as well as making them, even when not roaming, she told the Financial Times.
Asked if she was prepared to back the US-style system, she said: "Why not? The whole market is developing so we should not stay on the rules that have been in place 10 years."
Charges for accepting calls could be part of a new business model for mobile phone operators to be developed as the European Commission, the EU's executive, is pressing the companies to lower the cost of texting and downloading data abroad.
The European Regulators Group, made up of the EU's 27 national telecoms watchdogs, has said intervention is needed to cap roamed SMS prices but that data roaming, still in its infancy, requires more careful study.
The Commission has already capped roaming charges for mobile phone users abroad.
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