International Mobile Roaming Charging in the OECD Area”, OECD Digital Economy Papers, No

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International Mobile Roaming Charging in the OECD Area”, OECD Digital Economy Papers, No Please cite this paper as: OECD (2009-12-21), “International Mobile Roaming Charging in the OECD Area”, OECD Digital Economy Papers, No. 166, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5kml8rbpw6tk-en OECD Digital Economy Papers No. 166 International Mobile Roaming Charging in the OECD Area OECD Unclassified DSTI/ICCP/CISP(2009)8/FINAL Organisation de Coopération et de Développement Économiques Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 21-Dec-2009 ___________________________________________________________________________________________ English - Or. English DIRECTORATE FOR SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INDUSTRY COMMITTEE FOR INFORMATION, COMPUTER AND COMMUNICATIONS POLICY Unclassified DSTI/ICCP/CISP(2009)8/FINAL Working Party on Communication Infrastructures and Services Policy INTERNATIONAL MOBILE ROAMING CHARGING IN THE OECD AREA English - Or. English JT03276450 Document complet disponible sur OLIS dans son format d'origine Complete document available on OLIS in its original format DSTI/ICCP/CISP(2009)8/FINAL FOREWORD The Working Party on Communication Infrastructures and Services Policy discussed this paper at its meeting in June 2009. The Working Party agreed to recommend the paper for declassification to the Committee for Information, Computer and Communications Policy (ICCP). The ICCP Committee agreed to the declassification of the paper in October 2009. The paper was drafted by Mr. Sam Paltridge, Mr. Yasuhiro Otsuka and Mr. Agustín Díaz-Pinés, of the OECD’s Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry. It is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. ©OECD 2009. 2 DSTI/ICCP/CISP(2009)8/FINAL TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD .................................................................................................................................................. 2 INTERNATIONAL MOBILE ROAMING CHARGING IN THE OECD AREA ........................................ 5 Main Points ................................................................................................................................................. 5 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 8 How did we get to here? ........................................................................................................................ 14 Mobile markets and contestability ............................................................................................................ 17 Mobile technical standards and market contestability ........................................................................... 21 Mobile pricing structures and market contestability .............................................................................. 22 International roaming pricing and demand elasticity ............................................................................ 26 What different stakeholders are saying .................................................................................................. 34 Indicators, trade flows and international roaming ..................................................................................... 39 Tax treatment of roaming .......................................................................................................................... 46 Methodological issues for comparisons ................................................................................................. 46 When and where does tax apply to roaming? ........................................................................................ 46 Inconsistent tax treatment of roaming ................................................................................................... 50 Potential for double taxation .................................................................................................................. 52 Roaming prices across the OECD area ..................................................................................................... 52 Telephony .............................................................................................................................................. 53 Market developments in international roaming ......................................................................................... 80 Retail price competition and discount plans .......................................................................................... 80 Cross-borderless roaming market developments ................................................................................... 83 Potential substitutes and alternative calling procedures for roaming ........................................................ 85 Mobile or nomadic wireless alternatives ............................................................................................... 85 Fixed location alternatives ..................................................................................................................... 92 Satellite roaming .................................................................................................................................... 92 ANNEX. 1 METHODOLOGY FOR DATA COLLECTION ON INTERNATIONAL MOBILE ROAMING CHARGES ................................................................................................................................ 94 ANNEX. 2 DATA ON INTERNATIONAL MOBILE ROAMING CHARGES ..................................... 95 3 DSTI/ICCP/CISP(2009)8/FINAL List of Tables Table 1: Percentage of mobile subscribers roaming internationally at least once a year .......................... 24 Table 2: Inbound and outbound roaming traffic and revenue: France ...................................................... 40 Table 3: Inbound and outbound roaming traffic and revenue: Spain ........................................................ 41 Table 4: Inbound and outbound roaming traffic and revenue: Portugal.................................................... 42 Table 5: Outbound roaming traffic: United Kingdom (millions of minutes) ............................................ 43 Table 6: Australian inbound and outbound roaming July 2007- June 2008 .............................................. 45 Table 7: Taxes on mobile roaming ............................................................................................................ 48 Table 8: Retail charges for making 3 minute local calls while roaming (average by country of origin) (USD) ........................................................................................................................................................ 54 Table 9: Retail charges for making 3 minute local calls while roaming (average by country of destination) (USD) .................................................................................................................................... 55 Table 10: Retail charges for making 3 minute call to the user’s home country while roaming (average by country of origin) (USD) ........................................................................................................................... 56 Table 11: Retail charges for making 3 minute calls to the user’s home country while roaming (average by country of destination) (USD) .............................................................................................................. 57 Table 12: Retail charges for receiving 3 minute calls while roaming (average by country of origin) (USD) ........................................................................................................................................................ 58 Table 13: Retail charges for receiving 3 minute calls while roaming (average by country of destination) (USD) ........................................................................................................................................................ 59 SMS ....................................................................................................................................................... 60 Table 14: Retail charges for sending SMS while roaming (average by country of origin) (USD) ........... 60 Table 15: Retail charges for sending SMS while roaming (average by country of destination) (USD) 61 Comparing call pairs .............................................................................................................................. 61 Table 16: Comparison of charges for roaming calls to home countries compared back to the same calls in the opposite direction (%) ......................................................................................................................... 63 Comparing the price of roaming with international mobile calls .......................................................... 64 Table 17. Comparison of charges for calling back to home country while roaming and making an international call to the country (%) .......................................................................................................... 65 Wholesale roaming rates ........................................................................................................................... 66 Inter-operator tariff structure and billing ............................................................................................... 66 Table 18: Charging structure for Mobile Services .................................................................................... 68 The level of inter-operator tariffs
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