Pricing calls to mobiles: analysis of the UK Monopolies & Mergers Commission Reports on mobile termination charges

Pietro Crocioni and Cento Veljanovski

Telecommunications Policy, 1999, vol. 23, issue 7-8, 539-555

Abstract: The UK Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC) nine-month inquiry into fixed-to-mobile termination charges provides an exhaustive analysis of competitive and cost factors in mobile telephony. Its recommendations are discussed and compared with those of the telecommunications regulator, OFTEL, which referred the mobile operators to the MMC after failure to agree a further reduction in charges in early 1998. The MMC, following the same general statutory duty required of OFTEL, to promote competition under the Telecommunications Act 1984, provided a radically different analysis and disagreed with most of OFTEL's specific proposals suggesting that some were anti-competitive. As telecommunications regulators are increasingly required to implement pro-competitive regulation, the MMC's reports show that the evolving approach of sectoral regulators contains some significant flaws.

Keywords: Mobile; call; termination; Mobile; network; operators; Regulation; Competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
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