When in roam...charge fair prices says ATUG

by Stuart Corner

Wednesday, 12 March 2008

Page 1 of 2 ! The Australian Telecommunications Users Group (Atug) has announced the key issue on which it intends to focus in 2008: "the exorbitant prices consumers and businesses face for using mobile voice and internet services while overseas." Announcing the campaign - under the name "Roam Fair" - in her opening address to the Group's annual conference in Sydney, Atug executive director, Rosemary Sinclair, said: "ATUG members have found themselves with bills in the hundreds and thousand of dollars when they come home. Regulators in other countries have already dealt with this issue and ATUG says it's time that Australians got a fair deal too. "When the Atug board discussed this issue a few weeks ago the energy in the room rose dramatically as example after example was given of staff travelling overseas coming home with bills for mobile services in the hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for just using services that they use at home. The industry's promise is service anywhere at anytime. Atug's response is yes, but not at any price." She claimed that while local sim cards and phone cards might be suitable for consumers, "they are no answer for businesses". And noted also "The European Union has decided they are not an answer for consumer either." The ACCC has investigated international mobile roaming services and while the final report of that enquiry, announced in September 2005 , found prices to be high, it laid most of the blamed at the door of overseas carriers charging high rates to Australian carriers to terminate calls to Australian mobiles roamed onto their networks. These charges are beyond the ACCC's jurisdiction, but the ACCC noted that "concerns over prices for international roaming services have attracted attention in a number of international regulatory forums", and commissioner Ed Willet said: "The ACCC will...seek to find opportunities to assist these forums in their consideration of co-ordinated measures that could be undertaken by regulatory authorities to address concerns in relation to the provision of international roaming services". CONTINUED << First page <   1 2 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

< Next story in category		Previous story in the category >

Visitors last 30 days Suscribers

904,266 13,751