March 28, 2005
For business in Europe, cellphone borders fall
For large companies, buying mobile phone service for employees who work in different countries means high prices -Cellphone service is one of the top staff expenses after salaries and leased cars, confusing bills in various languages and many service providers to deal with, explains the International Herald Tribune.
But help may be on the way. Dutch phone company KPN has announced a service called Sympac that will handle the contract negotiations in each country and integrate the many cellphone service providers into one contract, providing a simpler bill, lower prices and easy-to-use service across Europe.
Analysts said that such pan-European projects were a good start but that phone network providers needed to do more for multinational users.
For more than a year, some cellphone network providers have been copying airlines by forming alliances to offer a simpler multinational reach and using scale to negotiate better prices.
Analysts have said that these alliances have been formed partly to combat the international growth of telecommunications companies like Vodafone of Britain, which recently announced acquisitions of wireless businesses in Romania and the Czech Republic.
Still, some analysts are not convinced the alliances are doing enough, as network operators' roaming prices, even with the alliances, were still "completely outrageous."
MOst believe that users probably would see big changes in cellphone service prices or in the ability to roam and connect easily across borders only if regulators at the European Union or in individual countries took action.
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