Tesco slashes european roaming charges
Tesco slashes european roaming charges
Tesco Mobile lowers roaming costs ahead of EU deadline
Tesco is to cut European mobile roaming charges for its Tesco Mobile service, a joint-venture it runs with Telefonica S.A.'s O2 telephony unit.In response, MVNO urges the European Union to investigate the cost of text messaging while abroad as well.
Tesco got in first though. Ahead of the mobile phone European Commission tariff caps, Tesco Mobile will reduce the cost of a call customers make while abroad to 35 pence a minute, the same price it charges for U.K. calls. It will cost 15 pence a minute to receive calls while abroad.
Chief Executive of the supermarket chain Andy Dewhurst panned other mobile operators for delaying their price cuts.
"It is ludicrous that some mobile phone companies may make customers wait until the end of the summer to lower their mobile roaming prices," he ranted.
Earlier this month, European Union ministers approved legislation put forward by the European Commission, saying mobile operators could only charge customers up to EUR0.49 a minute for making calls across national borders in the euro zone. The cost of receiving calls when abroad was capped at EUR0.24 a minute.
Dewhurst urged the European Union also to investigate the cost operators charge people to send text messages from their phones while traveling abroad.
"We want prices to come down for texting as well and would love to pass a cut in pricing on to our customers, so we urge the E.U. to consider looking at this issue as well," said Dewhurst.
A spokesman for mobile operator O2, which runs its own service, in addition to providing a telecommunications network to Tesco Mobile, said O2 customers could already make calls for 35 pence in Europe, by opting into its My Europe roaming plan. O2 will also announce its own pricing response to the European Commission changes shortly, the spokesman said.
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