Andrew Colley | July 08, 2008
THE competition watchdog has been asked to investigate prices Australians are charged for using their mobile phones when travelling overseas.
A spokesman for a parliamentary communications committee said the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission had been invited to lodge a submission on the international roaming charges of local mobile carriers.
For Australians travelling in many overseas markets, a few minutes on the mobile can cost about $6 and tapping out a text message can cost as much as a local newspaper.
The ACCC investigated international mobile pricing in 2005 and found that carriers inflated charges way above the cost of providing the service.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy directed the House of Representatives Communications Committee to investigate mobile roaming charges earlier this month.
It is understood that the ACCC has been asked to revisit the topic as market forces have failed to bring prices down.
Australian Telecommunications Users Group chief Rosemary Sinclair said the organisation hoped to repeat the success of its international counterpart, INTUG, in Europe.
INTUG brought down roaming charges for consumers moving across European borders by imposing restrictions on how much carriers could charge each other for terminating calls on their networks.
Ms Sinclair said, however, that visitors to Europe from the Asia-Pacific region were still facing excessive roaming charges, as regulation was limited to EU carriers.
"When we look three years down the track, we'll find that there hasn't been the sort of progress the ACCC was hoping for, which from our point of view indicates that the market is not capable of fixing this problem and that's why it needs some sort of regulatory intervention.
"It's an absolute nonsense that if I go to Britain it costs me $3 per minute to ring back to Australia. The call doesn't cost anywhere near that," Ms Sinclair said.
It's understood that the ACCC has agreed to follow up on its 2005 report.
Local mobile carriers are refusing to provide detailed comment on the investigation before lodging their submissions to the parliamentary committee.
SingTel-owned Optus has confirmed that it plans to lodge a submission to the committee. Vodafone Australia chief executive Russell Hewett refused to comment on the investigation.
It's not clear what pressure Australian regulators would have available to them to reach a treaty with offshore carriers.
Ms Sinclair said Australia might be able to use its trade agreements to persuade foreign governments to join reciprocal regulatory treaties to force carriers to limit what they charge foreign carriers for mobile termination.
At the core of the problem for regulators are mobile termination rates that mobile carriers charge each other for accessing their networks.
Each network operates as a micro-monopoly isolated from natural market forces, Ms Sinclair said. "Everywhere around the world it has taken regulation to get these prices reduced," she said.
Submissions to the House of Representatives committee are due by August 15.