Hidden costs of slashing mobile roaming charge

FROM UKIP’S DEPUTY LEADER

majority of mobile phone users who spend nearly all their time in the UK?

Think about this – the mobile operators are huge, multi-billion pound corporate giants with shareholders looking for returns on their investment.

That means driving profits from anywhere they can be found.

As the EU has forced through a way to stop the operators making money out of roaming charges, they’ll have to look elsewhere to fill that void.

And the most likely answer to that problem will be you – the domestic mobile user.

Taking away a slice of a company’s income from one area will automatically see them identifying other areas for growth.

And what now seems likely is that income will be replaced by increasing what I’d argue are already high charges for using our phones here in the UK.

That means that people who own mobile phones and perhaps don’t even take a fortnight’s holiday abroad once a year, will be subsidising those that do. How can that be right? It’s quite canny when you think about it as there are more than 88 million phones used in the UK.

Most of them will be used here and even just a few pence extra on their bills will deliver huge swathes of cash into the operator’s coffers – just so those Facebookers and Tweeters can surf at their leisure by the swimming pool.

As usual the EU has not thought of the consequences and has pushed through legislation that will benefit the privileged few and not the many.

Under the new system, an OAP on pay-as-you-go could end up subsidising MEPs’ phone bills.

That is why this is a bad law – and that’s why UKIP opposed it.