Europe's telecommunications chief has said she would not be against mobile operators charging their customers for receiving calls.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Viviane Reding of the European Commission said such business models were "for the operators to decide", adding: "Why not [charge for receiving calls]? The whole market is developing, so we should not stay on the rules that have been in place 10 years."
Reding reinterated her plan to propose caps on the amount operators can charge for data roaming and sending text messages across borders.
Operators in the US and some other countries routinely charge users for receiving calls as well as making them, but this is not an approach that has thus far been taken in Europe. According to the Financial Times, the imposition of charges for receiving calls is linked with lower overall charges for US consumers — but not having to pay for receiving calls is also linked to Europeans owning more phones.
These lower end-user charges are based on the US having lower 'termination rates' — the charges levied by operators on each other for interconnecting calls — than Europe. Reding wants to see the average termination rate in Europe fall from eight cents to between one and two cents in the next few years. The Financial Times quoted her as saying current European termination rates are "guaranteed money" that cause "real distortion" in the European market.
ZDNet.co.uk has approached all the major operators in the UK for their reaction to Reding's words, but none had responded at the time of writing.
Talkback
If someone chooses to ring or text me, I do not expect to pay. The choice to ring/text would not be mine. If people choose to ring/text then they should be responsible for the payment.
To offer 'free' or 'included' call incentives and then charge the recipient of such calls is wholly unacceptable, in fact it's outrageous.
This one more American import that is not welcome. How can it reduce costs? It can only redistribute costs/charges. It's sufficient the UK and EU banks were stupid enough to import multi billions of American sub-prime debts which you and I (and our children) must ultimately pay for.
And what a charter that would be for 'cold callers' who are already such a nuisance.
If anyone needs to reverse the charges for a call, there is already the facility to do so. This or something derived from it would be acceptable, say if your son or daughter is on holiday and you wish them to keep in touch. It would be a specific case to which you had constructively agreed.
Imagine telling people not to call you just because it will cost you to recieve their call!
How about those unsolicited sales calls, wrong numbers, autobot calls etc..?
I wonder whether any UK network is brave enough to be the first to charge its customers for recieving calls, although if they can gang up like the gas companies they'll do it.