Market for call access and origination in public mobile telephone networks

In August 2008, ICP-ANACOM published a position on the pricing of services of call origination on national mobile networks ¹ and of billing and collection and risk of non-recovery charged by mobile operators in business in Portugal. This followed various complaints about the price of these services, which stood at levels similar to those of 2002.

In this position, ICP-ANACOM urged operators holding rights to use frequencies for the provision of the publicly available mobile telephone service:

• to reduce the prices of wholesale services for the origination of calls on their mobile networks to levels approaching or preferably in line with those set as the maximum for voice call termination on individual mobile networks, and at the same time;
  
  
• to promote price reductions in the service of billing and collection on behalf of other operators, desirably to levels not exceeding 20 percent of those established in the RIO 2008.

ICP-ANACOM also expressed its intention, in the event that no major changes are seen in these prices, to address this issue in the analysis of relevant market and/or submit the issue for consideration by ADC, pursuant to its remit.

Subsequent to this position, the mobile operators in business in Portugal implemented new rates for calls origination and billing and collection, and in one case a schedule was presented of price reductions until the end of 2009; however the matter remains under review in view of the large gap that persists between prices for origination and termination on mobile networks.

Finally, it is noted that in the context of the MVNO business, there were five entities registered up to 2008 as MVNOs. Of these, two entities initiated their activities: CTT, back in 2007, through its Phone-IX offers, and ZON TV Cabo Portugal, S.A. (ZON TV Cabo) in 2008 through its ZON Mobile offers.