Regulation here we come. June 30th was the deadline for European operators to let the EU telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding know how much they were charging for roaming text messages and data downloads as of July 1. Reuters reports an EU official in its executive body said that submissions from mobile operators showed that they hadn’t made enough price cuts to SMS messages sent abroad, though they had made reductions in the price of downloading data while traveling. The industry is now bracing itself for mandatory price cuts on SMS prices, but is expecting Reding to conclude that the data download business is too young to rush in with regulation.

Reding is to announce whether she will mandate price cuts on SMS and data on or around July 18. She has said in the past she will require operators to charge consumers 12 euro cents for a roamed text message, and for carriers to charge each other no more than 35 euro cents per megabyte for data.

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