OECD calls for mobile termination charges to be zero

National Australia Bank was touted as a world leader in the adoption of cloud security standards at an event staged at NAB headquarters in Melbourne by the Open Data Center Alliance, a global consortium of cloud computing stakeholders. ODCA as well announced two new members and a set of tools to develop compliant tenders for enterprise cloud projects.

The OECD is pushing its member government to make the price mobile carriers charge for delivery of calls on their networks to zero.

Every mobile operator has a monopoly over the deliver of calls to phones on its network and historically prices have been then above costs. This has caused headaches for regulators around the world. The ACCC has held several enquiries into the service and regulates prices. In spite of this, according to the OECD, Australia however has one of the highest rates among member nations.

The OECD has issued a new working paper "to contribute to the current debate among regulators in OECD countries who are reducing or considering the phasing out of the fees telecommunication network operators pay for delivering telephone calls to mobile wireless providers."

The working paper The complexity

According to the working paper "The complexity and difference in the way that operators charge fees makes it difficult to draw a link between rates charged and prices paid by users for voice calls in different countries...

"Cutting rates to zero would strengthen competition in voice and other services...It could as well speed up the introduction of innovative new VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services and encourage providers to offer a range of tariff models to meet the needs of their users, free from prices reflecting monopoly power on the networks of others."

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