France ‘Inviting’ Operators To Cut SMS Prices
By Dianne See Morrison - Thu 17 Jul 2008 12:44 PM PST
Record high inflation is apparently taking its toll on the purchasing power of French citizens, so what better way for the government to tackle the problem than to target the high price of SMS messages? Days after the EU announced it would move ahead with “measures” to slash the price of roaming SMS, France is “inviting” its operators to cut the price of text messages. Reuters reports that along with the invite the country’s junior minister for consumer goods Luc Chatel is penning a letter to the networks to “make them aware of the difficulties of consumers with low budgets.” That should warm the hearts of the operators.
According to a study published by French telecoms regulator Arcep, French consumers on pay-as-you-go phones, pay an average cost of 12 euro cents ($0.19) per text. While the volume of SMS sent in the country is nearly twice the amount sent in 2004, prices have remained stable. Moreover, the price of an SMS from France’s various MVNO’s, which buy network access from the carriers, actually cost 25-30 percent less than the main operators--Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom. Roaming text, the target of EU scrutiny, is nearly double the cost of domestically sent SMS.
