European Commission plans to cut routing costs have been stymied by governments.

By Huw Jones, Reuters,

The European Commission has failed to win governments' support for draft guidelines to cut the cost of mobile phone call routing fees failed to win a clear endorsement from EU governments, suggesting changes must be made before adoption.

EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding authored the guidelines for national regulators in the bloc's 27 countries to cut wholesale call termination fees by up to 70 per cent to spur competition and give customers a better deal.

An operator will pay a termination fee, currently around €9 cents (eight pence) a minute, for using another operator's network to complete a call.

The fees represent up to 20 per cent of revenues for large operators with big networks and are a big cost for small networks trying to compete. The guidelines will bring fees down to €1.5 cents to €3 cents a minute.

The EU's communications committee (Cocom) of national government officials and the Commission met to give a non-binding opinion and most countries either abstained or voted against some aspects.

Germany and Spain voted to scrap the guidelines altogether. Their biggest domestic operators say the measure will leave less money for important investment.

The Commission said there was enough support for the guidelines to be fully phased in by February 2012 but about eight countries want other ways to cut fees such as "benchmarking" or tracking average rates in other EU states.

"The Commission welcomes the positive signal at the vote today and there is support for the objective to lower by the first of February 2012 mobile termination rates to the level of the cost of an efficient operator," Reding's spokesman said.

"The Commission will now carefully analyse the view of member states who expressed the need for more flexibility," the spokesman said, adding adoption was scheduled for April.

An official close to one of the big Continental European operators said Reding will be obliged to review the guidelines.

"Without the consent of member states they cannot adopt the text. Will states be ready to apply the recommendation if their governments have voted against it?" the official said on condition of anonymity.

The European Regulators Group of national telecoms supervisors has said termination rates were already falling and would come down by 40 per cent over the next three years anyway.