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EU Wants To Limit Fees On Texting, Surfing

The European Union Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding has supported reducing the price of sending a mobile text message from one EU country to another by 16 cents.Reding's proposal is now being distributed to all other EU Commissioners before they formally implement it in early October. The EU's 27 member states and the European Parliament must also approve the measure.

EU Calls On Mobile Carriers To Reduce Fees

The European Commission has introduced a proposal to reduce the cost of mobile phone calls by lowering the fees carriers charge for using each others networks."Disparate termination rates across the EU and large gaps between fixed and mobile termination rates are serious barriers to achieving a Single European Telecoms market that benefits competition and consumers. The consumer pays the price for these gaps between national regulatory policies," said Viviane Reding, EU Telecoms Commissioner.

EU Pushes For IPv6 Adoption

The European Commission said today that it is setting a goal to get 25 percent of EU industry, public authorities and households to use IPv6 by 2010.

250 Million Europeans Are Online

More than half of Europeans are now regular Internet users, 80 percent of them have broadband connections and 60 percent of public services are online according to a new report from the European Commission.In 2007, the Internet attracted close to 40 million new regular users in the EU (now 250 million in total). More than 96 percent of European schools are now connected to the Internet, two thirds of which have broadband.

EU Sets Broadband Goal Of 30 Percent By 2010

In order to stimulate economic growth top regulators of the European Commission said they want to increase broadband coverage in the European Union from 20 percent to 30 percent by 2010.Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding said eight of the EU's 27 member states have surpassed the United States in broadband penetration, with Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden leading the way with penetration rates over 30 percent at the end of 2007.

EU Calls For Lower Mobile Roaming Fees

European mobile phone companies are charging customers too much when they send text messages or check email while traveling, a top European Union official said Monday.Viviane Reding, the European commissioner responsible for media and telecommunications, told industry executives that she would introduce new rules unless they decreased data roaming charges voluntarily by July 1st.