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Telecommunications Mobile roaming charges to face parliamentary scrutiny
Telecommunications Mobile roaming charges to face parliamentary scrutiny | Mobile roaming charges to face parliamentary scrutiny |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Thursday, 19 June 2008 | |
  
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The issue was examined by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in 2005. Its report found that "the prices of international roaming services may exceed their underlying costs of provision by a significant amount" and it identified a number of anti-competitive factors increasing the cost of international roaming, such as the structure of the market, a lack of consumer information, and a lack of practical alternatives. The ACCC laid most of the blame for high prices 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" The parliamentary enquiry will examine whether the factors limiting competition and driving up costs for international roaming services identified by the ACCC still hold true, and if not, whether this has resulted in more competitive pricing for consumers. The move will please the Australian Telecommunications Users Group (Atug). Earlier this year it flagged mobile roaming charges as the key issue on which it intended to focus in 2008. It described these as "the exorbitant prices consumers and businesses face for using mobile voice and internet services while overseas." A survey of members of the Enterprise VPN Users Association (EVUA), a global ICT network user group whose membership is exclusively CIOs in Fortune 1000 global companies. conducted by market researcher Ovum earlier this year found them less than happy with roaming charges and with the level of support they get from mobile operators. |
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