Mobile operators could face EC legal challenge on pricing

While data services have long been heralded as the next mobile cash cow for operators and roaming has for an equally long time been raising hackles due to the high charges it brings, things could be about to change. The EC may be readying a case against UK operators over the high cost and price standardisation of roaming.

The companies in question are the four major players in UK mobile - Vodafone, mm02, T-Mobile and Orange - who have been under investigation by the European competition commission over artificially keeping roaming charges high by collusion.

According to reports in the FT, that charge was too difficult too to prove and the EC will now be going after each of the operators on dominating its own network, with charges expected to be filed in the summer, the paper said.

The initial investigation was launched in 2001 but no formal charges have been filed to date.

Last year, nearly two years after the investigation begun, silicon.com readers were still experiencing disproportionately large bills for their roaming. One reader, Fred Perkins, complained of being charged £21.15 per MB of download as well as £4.13 for each day he used the roaming when travelling in Spain.

He said of the roaming prices: "These charges are positively onerous. How on earth can they be jusitified?"