EU's Reding wants "credible" data roaming fee cuts

BARCELONA, Spain, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Mobile phone operators must introduce "credible" cuts to the price of texting or surfing the Web on a laptop outside a home state in the European Union, the bloc's telecoms chief said on Monday. "Sending a text message or downloading data in another country should not be substantially more expensive than at home," EU Telecoms Commissioner, Viviane Reding, told reporters at the Mobile World Congress.

Texting while travelling elsewhere in the 27-nation bloc should cost no more than at home plus a marginal add-on, Reding said.

She called on operators to warn their customers by July 1 how much they are charged for data roaming.

Several mobile operators, including Vodafone (VOD.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), KPN (KPN.AS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), 3 Group (0013.HK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Telefonica (TEF.MC: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) have cut their roaming data fees.

(Reporting by Nickolas Mika, editing by Huw Jones)