To roam or not to roam? That is the question

The lovely chaps at Silicon have published the news that Viviane Reding, EU telecoms commissioner will outline plans today to cut roaming rates on mobiles. The full story, originally by Reuters, can be seen here, but essentially it looks like they plan to cut the price of text messages by 70 per cent and extend price caps on voice calls for another three years.

On the face of it, it looks like a great move from the consumer point of view. We are so used to getting a mix of free calls and texts in the UK, but it can be a bit of a shocker when the bill comes in from abroad, especially if you are away without that special someone - or you just need to keep checking in on the puppy who’s probably being spoilt rotten by the dog-sitter, but you miss her anyway.

However, operators are already having to find new ways of making money as voice and SMS are generally expected to be 'free' under the terms of a contract and they need to make money somehow. Although roaming makes up only 1 per cent of their revenues the long term impact is likely to come back to bite the consumer in the proverbial rear in terms of higher handset costs or contract agreements. Of course there are data rich applications coming into their own that give operators a new revenue stream, but uptake of these has been relatively slow, even the widespread addiction to Facebook hasn't driven much more mobile internet usage just yet.

We'll have to see what the operators do to compensate.