Table 2: ITU Focus Group Indicative Target Rates and FCC Benchmarks compared

	FCC Benchmarks	ITU Focus Group
Coverage of analysis	72 countries	224 countries/territories
Data timeliness	1994 for income data; 1995/6 for cost/price data.	1 Jan. 1998 for teledensity; 28 Sept. 1998 for settlement rate data. Teledensity data to be updated annually. Net settlement data on three-year moving average.
Range of Rates (direct relations)	0.11-0.16 SDR per minute (15-23 US cents)	0.043-0.327 SDR per minute (6-44 US cents)
Transit shares	Not covered	0.05 SDR per minute (6.7 US cents)
Country groupings	4 by income + 1 by teledensity	7 by teledensity + 2 others for small island states and LDCs
Target years	Multi-year: 1998 (high income), 99 (upper middle), 2000 (lower middle), 2001 (low income), 2002 (low income, teledensity <1)	Year-end 2001 (2001-2004 for LDCs)
Dependency on settlements	Not Covered	Extended transition period for LDCs.

Source: ITU.

The Recommendations of the Focus Group also differ from the approach taken by the FCC in terms of the proposed transition period (to year-end 2001) and in the upper limits proposed for carriage of transit traffic (6.7 US cents per minute). When approved, the Focus Group’s recommendations will mark the first multilateral accord on the transition to cost-orientation and will provide a counter-balance to the unilateral approach adopted in the FCC’s Benchmarks.

Table 3: Indicative Target Rates proposed by ITU Focus Group
By teledensity group.  Teledensity = telephone main lines per 100 inhabitants

Teledensity T < 1	1 < T < 5	5 < T < 10	10 < T < 20	20 < T < 35	35 < T < 50	T > 50
0.327 SDR (44.3 US cents)	0.251 SDR (34.0 US cents)	0.210 SDR (28.5 US cents)	0.162 SDR (22.0 US cents)	0.118 SDR (16.0 US cents)	0.088 SDR (11.9 US cents)	0.043 SDR (5.8 US cents)

Source: ITU Focus Group Recommendation D 140 Annex E.