­The French telecoms regulator, Arcep has announced plans to start regulating mobile termination rates, and require a gradual reduction in the rates charged to landline operators over the next few years.

In this Decision, Arcep set the ceiling tariffs that operators could charge for mobile voice call termination up to 30 June 2009. The Authority has today launched a public consultation on its draft decision concerning the rate control plan to which the three mobile operators will be subject during the period running from 1 July 2009 to 31 December 2010.

Because mobile voice call termination rates and the constraints involved in altering retail offers have a fundamental effect on the sector, a transitional period is needed to give the market time to adapt. The operators have underscored the fact that too radical adjustment of wholesale prices could undermine market stability by creating opportunities for circumvention, for instance, or by upsetting the balance of certain offers.

As a result, the Authority believes that, although incremental costs can constitute a more suitable relevant cost concept, this cost level needs to be attained over a transitional period of several years.

Under these circumstances, the Authority proposes to pursue its policy of a progressive and pragmatic decrease in call termination rates by imposing a decrease, as of 1 July 2009, in the mobile call termination rate from 6.5 to 4.5 eurocents/minute for Orange France and SFR, and from 8.5 to 6 eurocents/minute for Bouygues Telecom, and a second decrease as of 1 July 2010 from 4.5 to 3 eurocents/minute for Orange France and SFR, and from 6 to 4 eurocents/minute for Bouygues Telecom.

These rates are to be compared to the corresponding cost estimates of an efficient operator which, for 2008, range from 1 to 2.9 eurocents, depending on the calculation method employed.

Posted to the site on 26th October 2008

Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/34309.php