EU to rule on roaming price caps for mobile data

Any caps would be similar to one the EU imposed last summer on crossborder voice calls and would cover usage while roaming outside a subscriber's home country.

The European Commission said Friday that a decision was expected Tuesday.

EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding has accused phone companies of charging too much for data roaming. She has urged them to bring down prices voluntarily by July 1 or face an EU-imposed cap on fees.

Costs people pay for making mobile phone calls outside their home countries have dropped by as much as 60 percent since the European Union executive capped fees last September.

But those caps do not cover mobile Internet or some 200 billion text messages that are sent a year in western Europe. Reding said that prices of those services have dropped only marginally and they need to slide further to encourage more people to use mobile Internet.

Crossing a border within the EU's 27 nations can hike the costs of text messaging, according to European regulators.

The cost of a text message at home ranges from 8 to 15 U.S. cents, but the average cost of sending one from abroad is 43 cents, just a penny less than when Reding first threatened to regulate the prices last year. Prices can go as high as 80 cents.

Mobile operators draw between 10 percent and 18 percent of their revenues from international roaming charges, according to research firm Evalueserve.

Mobile phone operators have accused Reding of undue meddling with the market and insist prices are already dropping.