Telecom offers deal to ward off mobile phone regulation

Telecom is offering a last-minute deal to try to fend off mobile phone regulation, The Dominion Post said today.

At the start of this month Communications Minister David Cunliffe released a long-awaited report on mobile regulation issues, and allowed three weeks for submissions.

The report repeated the Commerce Commission's previous finding that consumers were paying too much for voice calls from fixed home or business phone lines to mobile networks.

Telecom and Vodafone delayed a decision on regulation last year by offering to voluntarily cut mobile phone call prices.

A Telecom offer to voluntarily drop mobile termination rates further was made in a submission to the Government, The Dominion Post reported.

Vodafone said prices for mobile to mobile calls would rise to compensate for lost termination revenue on landline to mobile calls. In its submission Vodafone said it would lose $310 million in wholesale revenue over five years.

It predicted big rises in mobile call charges if Vodafone and Telecom attempt to recoup all the revenue lost on landline to mobile calls through increasing calling prices from a mobile.

Telecommunications Commissioner Douglas Webb recommends mobile termination charges from a landline to a mobile phone be regulated, but not mobile to mobile. Rates should halve to 12 cents a minute by 2011, from 24.5c in 2006, he says.

- NZPA