Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Viviane Reding, the European commissioner sponsoring a plan to cap the amount that mobile- phone companies can charge customers when they travel, said today that text messages may be added to the proposal.

Reding, speaking in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said European Parliament members ``insist very strongly'' on including text messaging, also known as Short Message Services, or SMS, and data services.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, didn't include text messages in its original proposal unveiled last July. Operators make about 15 percent of their sales from SMS, according to Robert Grindle, an analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in London.

The EU measure, which must be approved by the EU's 27 governments and the European Parliament, would pare about 5 billion euros ($6.5 billion) from EU wireless carriers' annual revenue of 8.5 billion euros from such fees, known as roaming charges. Companies including Vodafone Group Plc, Telefonica SA and Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile International have called the regulation unnecessary as they're already cutting prices.

Reding said operators should lower data charges.

``I've always been very clear to the industry,'' she said. ``The industry always claims that we don't need regulation and they are capable of bringing the charges down themselves. Here is a wonderful opportunity to bring down the charges on data.''

Paul Ruebig, an Austrian Christian Democrat who is steering the legislation through parliament, agreed that mobile operators should propose how to reduce data charges.

``We don't want to tell them how to do it,'' he said by telephone.

Parliament committees will present a proposed text in the next few weeks, said Redding, who aims to have the legislation passed by July.

To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Newman in Brussels at mnewman6@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 25, 2007 13:13 EST