Government told to act to cut international mobile roaming rates

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 19 March 2009 09:25

IT Industry - Market

A parliamentary enquiry into the high cost of international mobile roaming has identified Australian carriers' weak bargaining position with overseas carriers as a major contributing factor and has called on the government to initiate bilateral and multilateral negotiations to get wholesale mobile roaming charges reduced. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications has today (19 March) tabled its report to Parliament: "Phoning Home: enquiry into international mobile roaming." It found two "apparent" reasons for the high cost: the technical complexity to deliver internationally roamed mobile calls and "Australian providers do not appear to have the customer base to negotiate competitive prices for roaming services."

Its principle recommendation to bring down the cost is that "the Australian Government pursue a policy of regulating the framework for the wholesale cost of roaming through bilateral and multilateral negotiations with other countries, ensuring that countries with the largest number of Australian visitors are given priority."

Beyond this its recommendations focus mainly on improved reporting to better understand the prices being charges and better information to travellers about alternative, cheaper options.

However a novel suggestion that, if implemented, would introduce an element of competition into the provision of mobile roaming services was that travellers be permitted to port their mobile number to the Australian mobile service that offered the best prices for the destination they intend to visit, but only for the duration of that visit.

The committee concluded that, "As all the administrative and technical arrangements are in place to support portability, arranging temporary portability for roaming purposes should not be an insurmountable task." It recommended that the ACMA develop, through the Communications Alliance, an amendment to the Code on mobile number portability to allow temporary mobile number portability for roaming services.

The report calls on the ACCC to introduce reporting requirements on Australian providers of mobile roaming services. In particular, the Committee recommends that cost, revenue and service usage information should be provided.

To better inform consumers the committee wants the ACMA to facilitate a meeting of the Communications Alliance to discuss the development of a minimum standard for consumer information and awareness of roaming and potential costs; and it calls on the Government to explore opportunities to collaborate with Atug's 'Roam Fair' campaign.

Atug managing director, Rosemary Sinclair, said: "The innovative idea of temporary mobile number portability is one worth looking at. She welcomed the findings "that mobile roaming prices are too high, that fixing the problem is beyond the ability of the individual business or consumer and that Government needs to take the lead on fixing this problem through international efforts."

She added: "Atug expects that DFAT negotiators will now address this issue specifically in new trade agreements and annual reviews of existing trade agreements. It remains a nonsense and an inhibitor for business that Australian businesses making calls back to Australia pay tens of times more than their local business colleagues pay for essentially the same service.