ACCC rejects Hutchison mobile termination offers

Stuart Corner
Monday, 26 June 2006 02:11

IT Policy - Regulation

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has rejected the access undertakings submitted by Hutchison Telecommunications and Hutchison 3G Australia Pty setting out prices and other terms and conditions for the termination of calls on their CDMA and 3G cellular networks.
Hutchison submitted six undertakings last November: three which relate to calls terminating on the Hutchison '3' 3G network and three for its Orange CDMA network. They are otherwise identical. Of the three in each set, one related to calls originating on fixed and overseas networks, one to what Hutchison calls it 'dual rate' MTAS and one to its 'single rate' MTAS.

Hutchison proposed a charge of 18¢/min for all non-mobile originated calls, 12¢/min from mobile carriers that agreed to charge Hutchison the same rate to terminate calls on their networks and 21¢/min for those who did not.

"The ACCC has rejected the undertakings because some of the terms and conditions are not reasonable", ACCC Commissioner, Ed Willett, said. Willett said some of Hutchison's proposed prices for the supply of the MTAS were likely to significantly overstate the efficient costs of providing the service in Australia in some circumstances.

However, the ACCC commended Hutchison on its undertakings proposing 12 cents per minute, a price consistent with the indicative price outlined in the ACCC's own pricing determination for the period 1 January 2007 to 30 June 2007.

Willet said the ACCC was unable to accept this undertaking because, by requiring the originating carrier to charge the same price, Hutchison "sought to override the contractual terms of existing commercial agreements, which the ACCC has no jurisdiction over unless these terms fall within the ambit of the Trade Practices Act 1974".

The ACCC's determination can be downloaded from here.