Pressure to reduce roaming charges

Posted on July 6, 2006 / 2 Comments

BBC NEWS | Business | EU plans crackdown on mobile fees

“A plan to regulate mobile phone charges for calls made abroad will shortly be published by the European Commission, despite intense opposition.

The industry is concerned that the proposals go too far, and even within the commission itself there are doubts.

At present, most users pay far more to make mobile calls when they are abroad than they do in their home country.

This is because service providers have to pay large fees for access to one another’s networks.”

Not the highest priority for regulators in emerging Asia. However, high roaming charges are an instance of companies exploiting each other’s customers and are not defensible.

Possibly something that regional telecom regulatory associations such as SATRC can take up, at least as a watching brief.

2 Comments

Sriganesh Lokanathan
July 12, 2006, 9:48 pm
From the above article as well as the follow up story on BBC, EU slashes overseas mobile costs (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5172418.stm), it seems that the EU commissioner’s proposal has three components:
1) A cap on the wholesale charge
2) The profit margin on the retail price can be upto 30% of the wholesale charge
3) The profit margin on recieving a call can be upto 30% of average handling cost.

Were I a consumer in that region, I am sure I would be jumping for joy, but I wonder if such actions constitute over-regulation and unnecessary burden on regulators to study and monitor operators’ costs so as to place an effective cap.

Anyone care to comment??
Donald Gaminitillake
July 12, 2006, 10:42 pm
cost of roaming out of sri lanka on prepid card on one service provoder per minute

Zone G
From srilanka to India/Kuwait/Mexico LKR 282 Vat15%MSL 2.5% India to SL LKR 289 VAT MSL 2.5%

Lowest to Zone A = example South Africa, Zimnanwe, Japan Hungery Denmark Finland and many more LKR 43 Vat15%MSL 2.5% to SL LKR 50 VAT MSL 2.5%

Zone F USA , Russia Canada Cuba Congo
LKR 131 Vat15%MSL 2.5% to SL LKR 133 VAT MSL 2.5%

I think the closest country India is very high

Donald