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Telecommunications Cost of calling mobile phones cited as further evidence of Telstra's power
Telecommunications Cost of calling mobile phones cited as further evidence of Telstra's power | Cost of calling mobile phones cited as further evidence of Telstra's power |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Friday, 14 November 2008 | |
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"In any properly functioning market, a cut in wholesale prices would be expected to flow to retail prices almost immediately...But the evidence from the ACCC today that Telstra has pocketed regulated price cuts for calls from fixed to mobile phones shows again that Telstra's market power is beyond the control of standard regulatory tools." Telstra however has blamed the high retail prices on the ACCC: for not cutting the price of terminating mobile calls even further, but has failed to explain why it has not passed on the reductions the ACCC has made. Forman has an answer. He claims Telstra is "so dominant and so ruthless in exploiting the market power it derives from owning the monopoly fixed line access network...that it has been able to simply pocket reduced regulated costs when connecting customer calls to other mobile networks." Optus' director government and corporate affairs, Maha Krishnapillai, agreed, saying: “Optus welcomes the ACCC draft mobile termination indicative pricing decision... This is yet another example of the fact that when left to its own devices, Telstra’s focus is to maintain its monopoly profits. This is a great ACCC Christmas gift for all consumers.” The mobile terminating access service (MTAS) - the delivery by mobile network operators of calls to phones on their networks - is a 'declared service' and as such the ACCC is required to produce and publish pricing principles and to set prices. CONTINUED |
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