MOBILE TELEPHONY : BERLIN CALLED TO ORDER ON RATES CHARGED BETWEEN OPERATORS.

The European Commission called the German regulator (BNetzA) to order, in a letter made public on 3 December 2008, urging it to send it all of the termination tariffs for mobile calls without delay. Lacking this, the Commission will open an infringement procedure for failure to conform to EU legislation, it warns in a press release.

Mobile termination rates are the connection charge that a client's operator pays to the operator of the person called within a member state. These charges must be notified to the Commission in the form of a market analysis that national regulators are obliged to send in according to the 2002 regulation, stresses the Commission. According to the Commission, "BNetzA has twice failed, in 2006 and again now, to include these charges in the market analysis for wholesale termination rates". It also stresses that mobile termination rates in Germany are relatively higher than in several other EU countries.

"Germany cannot give itself an exemption from what is required in accordance with the EU telecoms regulation and which constitutes a common practice in other member states," warned EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding. "Lower mobile termination rates have a positive impact on consumers' bills and competition between mobile telephone companies," added her colleague responsible for competition, Neelie Kroes.

In its letter, the Commission rejects the BNetzA's argument that mobile termination rates do not need to be included in the market analysis notified to the EU. It also insists several times on the cross-border effect of price levels and on the obligation of a "notification" according to EU rules.

NATIONAL PROCEDURE

According to the German system, mobile operators active in Germany ask BNetzA to approve their termination rates. And, to justify the absence of a notification at EU level, the German regulator stressed the brevity of the national procedure (ten weeks), states the Commission. However, the Commission decides that "national procedures could not justify the failure to...