End to spaghetti jungle of chargers

TUCKING in... Chris Davies digging into a plate of "charger spaghetti" made up of different chargers

North West Euro-MP Chris Davies has praised Brussels bureaucrats for a deal that will benefit mobile phone users everywhere.

Under pressure from the European Commission the 10 leading manufacturers of mobile phones have agreed that from next year they will all use the same type of charger.

Davies said the threat of legal action had forced phone makers to see sense without the need for new laws.

The Liberal Democrat MEP described the current confusion of electrical connections used to power the 70 million mobile phones in use in Britain as a waste of money and resources.

“This is Europe at its best. No one country could have brought about this change alone, but our collective power has been used to bang heads together and secure a long overdue change for the better.”

The new charger will be based on the familiar micro-USB cable already used in some mobile phones. Apple, LG, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Qualcomm, Research in Motion (RIM), Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Texas Instruments have signed up to the plan.