Investigation into mobile roaming and co-location

In 2006 we began an investigation into whether to amend the terms of the roaming services under Schedule 3 of the Telecommunications Act.

In March 2008, we issued our final recommendation to the Minister for Communications and Information Technology on the regulation of mobile roaming. We recommended that the mobile roaming service not be designated, which means that it will not be subject to price regulation. We also recommended that the definition of the service be amended to make it compatible with modern technology.

The Minister accepted our recommendations, but asked us to consider whether there were grounds to commence a new investigation into the issue in light of new information the Minister had received since the recommendations were made.

In September 2008 we replied to the Minister that we did not consider there to be reasonable grounds to commence an investigation based on the information that had been assessed at that time. We informed the Minister that we would engage with interested parties and seek further information to better understand whether there are reasonable grounds to commence an investigation.

We reconsidered the matter after we had finalised our investigation into whether mobile termination access services should be subject to regulation.

In December 2010, we decided to not investigate whether the national mobile roaming service should be extended to include price because there were adequate commercial arrangements in place.