Commission releases mobile termination issues paper
Published21 Jun 2004
The Commerce Commission today released an issues paper to begin public consultation on its investigation into whether or not mobile phone call termination rates should be regulated.
Issued 21 June 2004
The Commerce Commission today released an issues paper to begin public consultation on its investigation into whether or not mobile phone call termination rates should be regulated.
The Commission commenced the investigation in May this year after considering complaints that a potential lack of competition in the wholesale market for terminating mobile calls may be resulting in unreasonably high charges for fixed-to-mobile calls.
The issues paper attempts to describe the relevant markets and the state of competition in these markets and discusses what may happen if the mobile termination market is regulated. The paper also discusses the service description that would be required to implement such regulation.
The Commission is seeking submissions on all these issues, as well as comments on the Commission's interpretation of its statutory obligations and the proposed analytical framework.
The closing date for written submissions is 19 July 2004. Submissions should be sent to:
The Commerce Commission has a range of responsibilities under the Telecommunications Act. Under Schedule 3 the Commission may, on its own initiative, commence an investigation into whether or not a telecommunications service should be regulated by making it a designated or specified service. The Commission may do this only if it is satisfied there are reasonable grounds for such an investigation.
In conducting its investigation the Commission will identify the relevant telecommunications markets and assess the level of competition in these markets. The Commission will then look at the difference between what is likely to happen both with and without regulation in order to assess whether there is sufficient benefit to end-users of telecommunications services to justify regulation.
