Issue: 13/08

APEC TEL 37

April 9, 2008

ATUG attended APEC TEL 37 in Tokyo on behalf of INTUG. The meeting of most interest to INTUG is the Liberalisation Steering Group (LSG).

INTUG’s Voluntary Report to TEL 37 is available here

In this report INTUG raises the issue of International Roaming Rates for voice and data services in the APEC region, referring to work INTUG has done in the EU:

International Roaming Rates for Voice, SMS and Data services.

INTUG has worked in Europe for joint action by regulators to reduce roaming rates for consumers travelling for business or tourism across EU Member States:

“Consumers can look forward to very large price reductions over the coming months, especially through the new Eurotariff. The European Regulators Group urges all providers to implement the necessary system changes and make other preparations as quickly as possible so that consumers can benefit from the lower prices at the earliest possible date.” Click Here

The first ERG International Roaming Benchmark Data report shows (Figure 7) the average price per minute of a regulated wholesale call. The Regulation specifies that on average the wholesale charge should be no higher then €0.30 per minute. Wholesale charges appear to have reduced with the majority of operators reducing charges in Q3 2007. The report is available here

The next goal for EU consumers was announced at the World Mobile congress in February 2008:

“The objective is clear: Sending text messages or downloading data via a mobile phone while in another EU country should not be substantially more expensive for a consumer than sending text messages or downloading data at home. This is the logic of the borderless single market which we in Europe agreed to create already 50 years ago. Higher retail charges abroad must be justified by additional cost of operators, or they will have to disappear.”

Click Here

The use of communications services to increase business activity and to support travel within and between APEC economies should be made easier and more affordable for business and consumer end users. Attention to roaming rates is a key tool to achieving this outcome.

Users accept that roaming should involve some premium above the local cost of a service, but in many regions the prices of roaming services are vastly greater than can be justified on an economic basis. End users are seeking significant reductions for voice, SMS and data roaming rates. For operators, as roaming rates come down, the evidence suggests minutes of use increase significantly.

INTUG would like to see TEL explore the costs to end users of voice and data roaming in the APEC economies.

Liberalisation Steering Group Meeting

Issues that were discussed at the LSG meeting of interest to INTUG included:

• Presentation on regulatory and policy developments in Japan – Item 2
• Industry Roundtable Report, in particular Mobile Roaming – Item 3(a)
• Regulatory Roundtable Report – Item 3(b)
• Business User Needs – Item 5
• OECD work on Protecting and Empowering Consumers – Item 6
• Consumer issues – Item 9(c)

ATUG was pleased to see the discussion of Mobile Roaming progress as this is a key issue for us in 2008 with the ATUG Roam Fair campaign.

The full report of the Liberalisation Steering Group meeting follows with highlighted sections indicating topics of most interest to INTUG is available here

APEC TEL 38

ATUG members would be welcome to attend an APECTEL meeting as a member of the INTUG delegation. The next meeting is in October 2008, in Lima, Peru.