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ITU cost model to assist regulatory guidance of mobile roaming tariffs
New ITU technical guide and online tool to gauge fairness of roaming charges
Geneva, 15 December
2015 – A
new ITU-T technical guide for National
Regulatory Authorities (NRAs)
will assist regulators in their efforts to create an enabling environment for
fair and affordable tariffs for international mobile-roaming voice services. The
new technical guide is accompanied by an
online tool
which provides a model to calculate the costs to operators of providing
mobile-roaming voice services.
The new technical guide and companion online tool were
developed in response to calls from ITU members for greater clarity on the
degree to which the prices that consumers pay for roaming services are
commensurate with their costs. Following a trial of a basic version of the
online cost model, it was expanded to provide regulators with a more
comprehensive tool to guide analyses of potential introductions of caps on
mobile roaming tariffs.
“ITU has a unique public-private partnership of members,”
said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “Our members are working together to
ensure that operators see fair return from the investments that enable their
customers to roam, and that end users pay a fair price for roaming services.”
“Mobile roaming continues to
receive much attention at the national, regional and
international level,” said Chaesub Lee, Director of
the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau.
“The new ITU-T NRA technical guide and companion
online tool will frame the issues at play in debates
concerning mobile roaming, providing a common basis
for ITU members to move these debates forward.”
The study of international
mobile roaming is a key work stream in ITU’s
standardization expert group responsible for
economic and policy aspects of information and
communication technologies (ICT), ITU-T
Study Group 3.
IITU has made great efforts to provide all stakeholders with a neutral
platform to debate the best course of action in regulatory guidance of mobile
roaming services. The new technical guide and companion online tool have emerged
from a study of roaming costs that has spanned more than two years in ITU-T
Study Group 3. The group continues to work towards the agreement of a new
international standard (ITU-T Recommendation) to outline regulatory
interventions capable of guiding the market towards mobile roaming tariffs as
low and fair as possible.
For more information,
please contact:
Sanjay Acharya
Chief, Media Relations & Public Information
ITU
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