The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today issued a report outlining the results of its monitoring of retail price movements for mobile services.
"This report represents a key component of the ACCC’s implementation of the retail benchmarking pricing principle for mobile phone termination services", ACCC Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said today.
"The report outlines individual average retail price movements for GSM mobile services for Telstra, SingTel Optus and Vodafone. The report estimates price movements using a methodology determined by the ACCC, in consultation with the industry, after the retail benchmarking pricing principle was determined by the ACCC in July 2001. The report covers the period from January 2001 to December 2002, and will be updated further when the ACCC assesses price movements for subsequent periods later this year.
“The information in this report will be useful for the review of the regulation of mobile telephone services that the ACCC is currently conducting.
“Among the major issues in this review is whether there should be continued regulation of the wholesale mobile termination service and, if so, how the pricing of this service should be regulated by the ACCC.
“The ACCC wants to make it clear that disclosure of this information should not be seen as providing any indication that the ACCC has formed any initial views in this review.
“Rather, the issue of this report should assist parties in commercial negotiations with regard to the mobile termination service and inform interested parties' views as to the effectiveness of the existing pricing principle for mobile termination services as part of the current Mobile Services Review".
The results of the retail benchmarking analysis to date are provided in the attachment below.
The report will available in the telecommunications section under Industry regulation & price monitoring.