The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has today echoed the European Commission (EC) by joining calls for mobile operators to cut the "high prices being charged for international data roaming" services.

A new OECD report analysed pricing plans from 68 Mobile Network Operators (MNO) over 34 countries and found "either insufficient retail or wholesale competition", not to mention a strong case for new consumer protection rules.

The average price for a single MegaByte (i.e. 1MB) of mobile internet data stood at £5.76 (USD 9.48) and varied wildly, with people in Greece paying half as much. Meanwhile consumers in Canada paid well over twice the average at £14.96 (USD 24.61). Happily the UK was the 8th cheapest country.


The report suggests that mobile operators should put in place a number of "simple measures", such as a "cut-off limit" based on price or amount of data used, to help prevent Bill Shocks. European operators are already doing something similar, although the EC intends to go much further in the future by forcing retail roaming costs lower (here).


In related news Orange UK claims that its revenue from mobile data services is expected to double within the next 4 years. At present the average data usage per customer is around 8MB per month, claimed the operator, up from 3.5MB this time last year (2010). Orange expects revenue from data use to be worth 28% by 2015, up from 13% today.