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Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority (FICORA) Switchboard +358 9 69 661 Television fees Customer service of Fi-domain names +358 9 6966 700 |
19.02.2007 Termination charges to be considerably reduced - the outcome of negotiations between operators in line with FICORA’s viewsTeliaSonera Finland Oyj, Elisa Corporation and DNA Verkot Oy have reached an understanding on a significant reduction in the termination charges that they invoice each other. The new charges will apply in 2007 and 2008. The termination charge is a compensation fee paid by telecom companies for calls made to the competitor's network. Termination traffic between operators is a prerequisite for communications between the customers of different operators. Reasonable termination charges are important for making communication networks and services available to all telecom companies and users and for ensuring equal competitive conditions for all companies. TeliaSonera will reduce its termination charges from 6.8 euro cents to 6.6 cents per minute, Elisa from 8.4 cents to 7 cents per minute and DNA from 10 cents to 8.2 cents per minute. The new charges are clearly below the EU average. Next year the charges will be further reduced: The termination charges applied by TeliaSonera and Elisa will decrease to 5.1 cents per minute, and those applied by DNA to 6 cents per minute. The total reduction during 2007–2008 will be 25–40 percent. The result of the negotiations between telecom operators is in line with the view expressed by FICORA in December 2006. FICORA publicised its views on the development of termination charges during the period 2007–2009 because its calculations indicated that the termination charges were not reasonable when compared with the related costs. The views expressed by FICORA also took into account the need to reduce the price differentials between operators. As the companies have now reached a negotiated agreement that is in line with FICORA’s views, it has discontinued the pending process of analysing the termination charges. Price reductions promote competitionFICORA is of the opinion that the agreement negotiated between the telecom operators will promote the functionality of telecom markets and go a long way towards ensuring that communications networks and communications services are available under reasonable conditions to all telecommunications operators and users. The reduction in termination charges will promote competition in the industry and allow for a reduction in retail prices applicable to calls made from fixed-line networks to mobile networks, for example. The price reduction will also reduce the distortion of prices between termination charges and the retail prices of mobile services. The retail price charged to the users of mobile communications services and consumers has in many cases been even lower than the price charged between operators for terminating traffic. FICORA will keep on actively monitoring the pricing of termination traffic as this is one of the focal points in the authority’s operations. Decisions by FICORA in Finnish: DNA Verkot Oy [PDF, 30 KB] Elisa Oyj [PDF, 28 KB] TeliaSonera Finland Oyj [PDF, 30 KB] Further information:
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