After capping international roaming call costs, EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding has set her sights on a few other charges she considers excessive. Mobile data has come to her attention, and she has warned that “we will watch developments very closely and respond appropriately by the end of 2008” in terms of the cost of international SMS and roaming data charges reports AP. Since capping the phone calls, the charges for Europeans making calls within the EU outside their home countries have dropped by “as much as 60 percent”. Reding is also looking at the practice of charging calls by the minute, so a 20-second call costs the same as a 59-second call—apparently this raises the cost of the average call by 20 percent, reports AFP.

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