Britain's House of Lord has indicated support for the German EU President's call for a cap on the cost of roaming interconnect charges, with the suggested price being €0.30 (about 25pence) a minute.

The Lords say this should 'significantly' reduce roaming charges for customers throughout Europe. A committee has been conducting an inquiry since January and is expected to produce a full report in April.

The interim statement said: "The EU Commission is right to attempt to tackle this issue as excessive roaming charges act as a barrier to the functioning of the single market both in terms of the actual cost of phone services and more widely by the extra costs they impose on small and medium size businesses attempting to operate across the EU.

I think a cap on roaming charges is a good idea, especially when you;re talking about interconnect between what is effectively the same company, and where traffic is carried not across telecoms infrastructure but the far-cheaper internet, such as connecting to O2 in Germany when I'm an O2 customer in the UK. In effect what happens there is I get charged by O2 to connect to O2, albeit in a different country, which just seems a little odd (leaving out normal International call charges, that is).

Via The Register