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Consumer Advocate Group in France fights to bring down price of SMS
A consumer advocates group, l'Union Fédéral des Consommateurs, UFC, is going after French mobile operators - Orange France, SFR and Bouygues Telecom - accusing them of maintaining text messaging prices at an unfairly high level. As of today, UFS is launching a petition which will be sent in February to the French government, the Secrétariat d'Etat à la Consommation, the European Commission as well as the ART (Telecom governing body). According to UFC, a mobile user pays between 0.11 and 0,15 euro ($ 0,13 and $ 0,18) to send a single text message, whereas it only cost the operator 0,02 euro ($ 0.024), allowing him to realise a 80,2% profit margin. UFC is not demanding that operators charge text messages at cost, but says a fairer price would be between 0,03 and 0,05 euro. At 0,05 euro per SMS, UFC estimes operators would have a profit margin of 47%. And as a point of comparison, UFC claims that Orange's profit margins on voice calls is 37%, which is already a very lucrative deal. Julien Dourgnon a directeur at UFC is asking the 3 operators to "return the 350 to 400'000 euros earned off the back of teenagers last year". It is estimated that 8 to 24-year-olds are responsible for 75 percent of the SMS traffic in France. Elsewhere in Europe (outrageous) prices per SMS. Holland : 0,22 euro ($ 0.26)Grece : 0,08 euro ($ 0.09)Switzerland : between 0,13 and 0,19 (between $ 0,15 à $ 0,22) When I tell my teenage son (we are in Switzerland) that there are offers in the UK for "900 free SMS per month" (Vodafone) or that US Cingular offers 750 SMS for 8,.40 euros, he stares at me in bewildered awe. As allowance, he's entitled to a prepaid phone card which cost 19 euros, which allows him to send 100 text messages. It lasts all of 3 days. Links: Yahoo fr / Le Figaro |
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