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Techradar: The EU’s consumer protection division is set to crack down on rogue mobile phone companies offering so-called ‘free’ games and ringtone services to entice younger mobile users into signing up for costly monthly contracts.

Additionally, the UK’s telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding has called for the cost of data roaming and sending text messages when abroad to be more than halved.

Meglena Kuneva, head of the EU’s consumer protection division has called for national regulators to take legal action against rogue ringtone and mobile game subscription services.

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PC Advisor: UK mobile operators have revealed they are ‘unlikely’ to start charging users to receive calls.

The response came following comments made by European commissioner Viviane Reding suggesting that operators should decide whether a US-style system, in which mobile phone users are charged for calls they receive, should be implemented in Britain.

Vodafone told ZDNet.co.uk: “The likelihood of any new radical pricing is pretty slim”.

Orange and T-Mobile agreed with Vodafone, both stating they had no plans to charge customers for incoming calls while O2 said “any move to such a system [receiving party pays, or RRP] would need to take place across the EU at once, in order not to distort the market”.

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PC Advisor: European Telecommunication Commissioner Reding wants to hand half of all radio spectrum that becomes available when TV switches from analogue to digital transmission – the so-called digital dividend – to mobile and wireless networks by 2010.

Speaking after addressing the 27 telecom ministers of the EU at a meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday, Viviane Reding said distributing the newly available radio frequencies quickly and efficiently is vitally important.

“Let me make a very bold proposal: let us agree to allocate, by 2010, 50 percent of this digital to new mobile and wireless services. This would allow us to turn the dream of broadband for all Europeans into a reality, while at the same time allowing enough space for commercial and public broadcasters to develop and offer new and more modern TV services,” Reding said.

Distributing radio spectrum is an essential element in Reding’s reform package for Europe’s telecom regulatory regime. She has faced pressure from all sides, including from broadcasters, who want to keep the lion’s share of frequencies in the TV industry.

Reding announced her 2010 target date for the distribution of radio spectrum during the first formal discussion of her reform package with telecom ministers. One of her key plans – the creation of a powerful central telecom regulator for the EU – was dismissed by the ministers.

But other elements of the package won widespread support, including her plan to punish former telecom monopolies that fail to give rivals fair access to their networks by forcing them to separate their network operations from their services units.

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