EU Regulators, Meet Unintended Consequences

The EU has finally approved caps on international roaming charges, with the regulations set to be in place by the end of June. Outgoing calls for EU subscribers traveling around the continent will be capped at 49 eurocents per minute, with incoming calls at 24 cents. That sounds great, except that it will actually raise the prices for some calls. So in addition to raising rates outside the EU as well as raising domestic rates, calls within the EU could also be more expensive thanks to these regulator-imposed price "cuts". Like we've called it before, this is balloon squeezing -- maybe something goes down, but all the rest goes up -- and hardly represents effective or sound regulation.

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