MTR for Passing Calls/Texts to Vodafone

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › MTR for Passing Calls/Texts to Vodafone

DjShadow

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#37857 20-Jul-2009 16:17

News Link

This looks like a step in the right direction! If only Telecom would do the same thing before the Comcom makes them do it

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#237195 20-Jul-2009 16:19

A step in the right direction would be if they didn't have a secret deal.

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#237538 21-Jul-2009 15:17

I'd be happy to tell you all about it but unfortunately we've signed a confidentiality agreement.

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Paul Brislen
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http://forum.vodafone.co.nz

freitasm

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#237544 21-Jul-2009 15:30

Fair enough about no being able or allowed to comment,

But it still sounds like an anti-competitive cartel price fixing scheme, mainly because of all the secrecy around it...

Questions in my mind are:

1 Was Telecm offered the same deal?
2 If not, why not?
3 If yes, why did they decline to accept?

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#237548 21-Jul-2009 15:35

Obviously I am not saying you cannot exercise different prices for different customers.

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#237554 21-Jul-2009 15:45

We already have a deal in place with Telecom that's quite different... it's the Deed of Undertaking that legally requires us to pass savings on to customers.

That one's all about fixed to mobile (FTM) termination rates. Mobile to mobile tends to be something of a wash between us - we send each other a cheque for the same amount (more or less, in general) so it's quite irrelevent.

But if we're asking about questions you should ask, can we also add:

What deal has Two Degrees struck with Telecom
Why doesn't Two Degrees want us to talk about the deal?
Why hasn't the Commerce Commission factored the deal we've got into its draft determination (it's there, but hardly mentioned) given they know about it and it delivers to a lot of the things they've said they want.

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Paul Brislen
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http://forum.vodafone.co.nz

freitasm

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#237555 21-Jul-2009 15:55

Ah! Good questions too...

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#237558 21-Jul-2009 16:02

Vodafone, and I would suspect most companies would be in this boat, would prefer a commercial decision over and above regulation every time.

Regulation leads to distortions, like the TSO, that cause as much trouble as the issue they're solving... It looks good on the day but a decade later it's stuffing up some other part of the industry.

Bonus question: what was the MTR when Vodafone bought Bell South a decade ago?

Paul Brislen
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timestyles

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#237574 21-Jul-2009 16:56

PaulBrislen: Vodafone, and I would suspect most companies would be in this boat, would prefer a commercial decision over and above regulation every time.

Bonus question: what was the MTR when Vodafone bought Bell South a decade ago?

My guess is that it is archived somewhere in Vodafone's data. Well, in 2003 it was about 30c/min. I'm wondering why VF charge 90c/min for prepay when their 'cost' is 15c/min. It can't be all going on the call centre in Egypt and Vodafone don't really advertise prepay anymore.

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#237576 21-Jul-2009 17:00

It was a rhetorical question.

It was 50c/minute.

Now sure, the market wasn't anywhere near 100% penetration at the time, but the MTR was 50c/minute. We still launched.

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Paul Brislen
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#237579 21-Jul-2009 17:07

I'm hoping it's a LOT less than $0.095 for text messages, because $0.10 or over per text message is absurd for (max) 160 char of data...

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#237678 21-Jul-2009 21:21

Four_seven: I'm hoping it's a LOT less than $0.095 for text messages, because $0.10 or over per text message is absurd for (max) 160 char of data...

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#237721 21-Jul-2009 23:58

Four_seven: I'm hoping it's a LOT less than $0.095 for text messages, because $0.10 or over per text message is absurd for (max) 160 char of data...

Of course the data has to go through some slow links that were never designed to handle lots of data. If the cell sites moved to VoIP with fatter uplinks these economics might change, but then you would be looking for revenue to pay for the upgrades :)

Time to find a new industry!

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#237727 22-Jul-2009 00:26

I have been saying 2degrees wont be much cheaper than B&W becuase of the required roaming but then I saw this and I suppose since they will be using so many minutes on the VF network when I guess they should get some sort of bulk deal.

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#237900 22-Jul-2009 15:16

PaulBrislen: Vodafone, and I would suspect most companies would be in this boat, would prefer a commercial decision over and above regulation every time.

Regulation leads to distortions, like the TSO, that cause as much trouble as the issue they're solving... It looks good on the day but a decade later it's stuffing up some other part of the industry.

Bonus question: what was the MTR when Vodafone bought Bell South a decade ago?

Paul check out this link

http://www.tuanz.org.nz/blog/e379f711-b2b6-4423-9e32-4a8bf9f301db/5ec20a53-ebce-4cef-93ec-812bb7b729a6.html

also I believe that MTR's are reviewed every six months in Europe and will be reduced to 0.03 Euro by the end of 2012 so why not here. It's true also that Vodafone New Zealand is the highest performing subsidiary in the vodafone empire. Vodafone NZ are creaming it for a population of only 4.3 million and mobile market share of 53%.

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#237913 22-Jul-2009 15:33

Hi there,

The Terminate the Rate site is supported by many of the UK's MVNO partners... that is, they don't have a network so for them it's great if they can pass on all the costs to some other network. That's how Bill and Keep, as it's known, works.

Fortunately the UK regulator (and the NZ regulator) has said no to that. It simply leads to companies charging customers to receive calls or some other kind of mechanism for recovering costs (eg $47.50/month for line rental).

The European rates aren't anywhere near as low as you suggest, and I don't believe any regulator has enacted that rate. The EU commissioner has called for rates to be lowered, but it's up to each country's regulator to respond and so far nobody's moving to those kinds of levels.

The big issue in Europe is achieving pass through - that is, savings incurred in the reduction of mobile termination rates should be passed through to consumers. In the UK the rate is around 64%. In Europe the average is 50%. In Australia, Telstra has passed througn only 25%.

The Draft report from the Commerce Commission puts pass through in NZ at 75% - this despite Telecom saying they simply will not guarantee any level of pass through. In effect, there's nothing the Com Com can do about that - they cannot regulate retail rates, only wholesale. So they can force Vodafone to charge Telecom a lower termination rate, and Telecom could in turn not pass that saving on to customers. It will simply make a larger marging. Telstra has done this in Australia to the tune of (estimated) A$500 million.

In New Zealand today we have 100% pass through because both Telecom and Vodafone signed a Deed of Undertaking to deliver that so as to avoid regulation. One hundred percent.

Cheers

Paul

Paul Brislen
Head of Corporate Communications
Vodafone

http://forum.vodafone.co.nz

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