Technology news and Jobs 
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 |
|
| by Stuart Corner | |
| Friday, 14 November 2008 | |
|
Page 2 of 4 MTAS became a declared service on 30 June 2004 at which time the mobile operators were charging in excess of 21 cents per minute for call termination. The ACCC issued pricing principles requiring them to reduce charges to 21 cents on 1 July 2004 and then progressively to the current price of nine cents per minute until 31 December 2008.Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
It notes in this document that, when it set out the phased MTAS price reduction in 2004, it had hoped that competition between providers of fixed line phone services would see the benefits of this reduction passed on to consumers. Sadly this has not happened. And as recently as 1 November Telstra effectively hiked the price for its customers making calls from fixed lines to mobile phones very significantly: by changing its pricing to 30 second increments instead of one second increments. According to the ACCC, since 2004 the average cost to a residential Telstra fixed line customer calling a mobile phone has gone down by only about five cents per minute, from 43.52 cents to 38.44 cents. For business customers there has been hardly any change at all with prices hovering around the 33.5 cent mark. The ACCC said, very diplomatically that it was "disappointed" at seeing no reduction and suggested that the government might need to step in and regulate. "The Commission notes that additional regulatory mechanisms may be necessary to ensure a greater pass through of reductions in MTAS prices to FTM retail prices." Prices for basic telephone services are already capped by Government regulation using a formula linked to the consumer price index but the ACCC suggests that these controls might need to me more precisely targeted. CONTINUED |
| < Next story in category | Previous story in the category > |
|---|
