Response to Public Consultation on a Review of the functioning of the Regulation (EC) No 717/2007 (the “Roaming Regulation”) and its possible extension to SMS and data roaming services General experience of the functioning of the Regulation Question 1 To what extent do you consider that the Regulation has achieved its objectives (as described above) in relation to the following core elements of the Regulation: (i) reduction of retail prices to acceptable levels (the Euro-tariff and its opt-out provisions) (Art. 4); Meteor Mobile Communications Ltd (Meteor) has reduced all roaming charges in compliance with the requirements of the Regulation. (ii) transparency of retail prices (Article 6); Article 6 of the Regulation outlines in detail the obligations that an operator has in respect to provision of information to end users. The article includes a specific obligation on operators to provide an automatically generated message service with personalised pricing information applying to the making and receiving of calls when roaming. This message should be received by subscribers when entering a Member State other than that of the home network. Further information can be requested by means of access through a free phone number and general awareness measures on pricing are specified. All obligations as outlined above have been met by Meteor, however, it should be noted that at the time of the introduction of the Regulation Meteor’s network was not provisioned to supply the automatic SMS message service as stipulated in the above Article. To be in a position to provide this service, Meteor had to tender, design, install, test and finally deploy an appropriate solution. Installing the platform, which was nine months in development, was a significant undertaking for smaller operator and, further to extensive tests, was finally deployed in March 2008. (iii) Reduction of wholesale prices (Article 3); and In advance of the introduction of the Regulation, Meteor highlighted to the institutions of the European Union the positive impact that a Regulation capping wholesale prices could have on the development of competition within the international voice roaming market in Europe as smaller 2 operators were being disadvantaged by the stranglehold that larger operators enjoyed within the wholesale market. Meteor maintained that ensuring wholesale access on a more equitable basis would safeguard a smaller operator’s ability to compete within this market, would ensure competition and would ultimately allow operators to offer competitive retail tariffs. Meteor, therefore, welcomed the introduction of a reduced charge at the wholesale level, ensuring as it does some security for a smaller operator to compete. Meteor notes that the capped wholesales prices still provide some degree of flexibility for operators to competitively price within this market and indeed Meteor has successfully negotiated volume discount agreements (VDAs) within this price cap which, in the case of the T-Mobile deal in the UK, has translated into lower retail tariffs. (iv) Supervision and enforcement of compliance, including dispute resolution (Article 7, 8 and 9) Since the introduction of the Regulation, Meteor has complied with all data and information requests as required by the national regulatory authority in Ireland, the Commission for Communications Regulation, (ComReg). Question 2 To what extent has the Regulation produced unintended consequences for mobile customers, whether in terms of the availability or quality of retail roaming services and/or the amount of information provided to end users by their mobile operators? Meteor is unaware of any unintended consequences of the roaming regulation for the mobile customer. Question 3 How have tariffs for making and receiving voice roaming calls on the basis of tariffs other than the Eurotariff evolved since entry into force of the Regulation? Are these tariffs more advantageous for customers than the Eurotariff offered by their mobile operator? Please supply data which illustrate your reply. Meteor has not introduced additional tariffs to the Eurotariff since the introduction of the Regulation, however, in advance of the introduction of the Eurotariff Meteor successfully introduced highly competitive roaming rates on the T-Mobile network in the UK. Prices for Meteor customers when roaming on the T-Mobile network in the UK remain significantly lower than those imposed through the Regulation’s retail caps. 3 Question 4 What has been the impact of the Regulation, on mobile operators, in terms of revenues, volumes, profits, innovation etc? Revenue The impact of the regulation change has seen an average rate per call reduction for Meteor subscribers of 54% and an average rate per call reduction for visiting roamers of 47%. Volumes Volume of calls per Meteor subscriber have seen a modest increase for voice traffic and the average number of visitor minutes has also slightly increased, however, Meteor would be wary of attributing these changes solely to the adoption of the International Roaming Regulation. Please note that over the last year Meteor has introduced a number of new CAMEL agreements (real time billing for pre-pay customers) and observed significant changes to the Meteor customer profile, both of which will influence volume increases. In this context, therefore, it is not possible to attribute changes solely to one regulatory intervention. Profit Please note that Meteor is unable to identify the true impact of the Regulation with respect to profit. There exist a number of variables to consider that cannot be identified separately. Question 5 Since the adoption of the Regulation have there been any instances of the termination of threat of termination of wholesale roaming agreements or the refusal to negotiate new ones? Previous to the adoption of the Regulation it would be true to say that Meteor experienced both refusal to supply and severe delays in negotiating and concluding wholesale roaming agreements. Since the adoption of the Regulation, however, whilst Meteor does continue to experience some delay in finalising the above, this could be attributed more to normal market conditions than a reluctance to provide access. Please note that Meteor does enjoy roaming agreements (voice, SMS and other data services) with at least one operator in all Member States of the EU. 4 Inadvertent Roaming Question 6 What measures could be taken to avoid the adverse effects of inadvertent roaming, whether by means of voluntary cooperation between operators or by means of regulatory or legislative action? Although not a general feature of the mobile market, Meteor and mobile operators in general do acknowledge that inadvertent roaming can occasionally occur along border regions. Mobile radio transmissions do not respect geographical borders. Minimising this risk is, however, the responsibility and challenge faced by all operators when configuring networks in these areas. Meteor is, therefore, continually engaged in monitoring the network by means of drive tests to ensure that this risk is kept to an absolute minimum. Question 7 If you are an operator, what measures (technical or otherwise) have you taken to deal with the issue of inadvertent roaming both to prevent it happening and to compensate for the adverse effects once it has been shown to have occurred? How do you raise awareness of the problem and the potential remedies on the part of your customers? As stated above, mobile operators do acknowledge that inadvertent roaming can occur along border regions and Meteor does accept that there have been a reported number of instances of inadvertent roaming in the border areas between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Any reported instance of inadvertent roaming is, however, addressed both from a technical and customer experience perspective. In the Irish case, commercial and political pressure to provide competitively placed all Ireland mobile tariffs contributed to the launch of Meteor’s new Northern Ireland and UK T-Mobile price plans. Launched in September 2006, the deal saw the introduction of highly competitive roaming rates for Meteor customers when roaming on the T-Mobile network in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. Whilst Meteor would stress that the T-Mobile deal was not a direct consequence of any particular instance of inadvertent roaming, it did act as a commercial response from Meteor to the issue of all Ireland tariffing. Since the launch of this special tariff we have noted a significant decrease in customers contacting our Customer Care centres on the issue of inadvertent roaming. We believe this is in part due to our tariff initiative but also due to consumers being aware that they can control inadvertent roaming through the use of manual network selection. What should be noted about this deal is that despite the fact that Meteor is the only operator active within the Republic of Ireland without a UK foot-print, commercially driven negotiation saw Meteor offering the most competitive rates in the market place. Meteor was also the only network in the Republic of Ireland to completely abolish all charges for pre-pay customers to receive calls while roaming in the UK. 5 Question 8 What has been the impact on mobile users and service providers of the implementation of the Regulation as far as roaming within, from or between the outermost regions is concerned? Meteor is compliant with all aspects of the Regulation and the Eurotariff is available for Meteor subscribers when roaming in all areas of the EEA, including the outermost regions. Question 9 What additional measures (if any) have been taken by the Member States or their NRAs to address roaming between the outermost regions and other parts of the EU? n/a Impact on smaller operators Question 10 What has been the financial impact (revenues, costs, profits, volumes etc) on smaller mobile telephony providers of the application of the Regulation since its entry into force on 30 June 2007? Please provide financial data and any other information in this respect wherever possible (which will be treated as confidential if so requested).