Hungary's telecoms regulator, the National Communications Authority (NHH) has announced plans which will require the three Hungarian mobile operators to reduce their termination charges in their networks. Termination charges should uniformly fall to HUF 11.86 in three steps by 1 December 2010.
Currently, the three service providers levy different termination charges. HUF 19.75 per minute is charged for the termination of calls made from an external network to the network of Magyar Telekom, and HUF 20.29 and HUF 20.99 are billed in Pannon's and Vodafone's network for such service, respectively.
The decrease in termination charges will allow the retail prices of fixedline and mobile calls directed to (terminated in) mobile networks to be reduced further.
Termination charges will drop unvaryingly to HUF 14.13 on 1 January 2010 to reach the cost-based charge of HUF 11.86 on 1 December 2010, a charge determined by the Board on the basis of the BU LRIC (Bottom Up Long Run Incremental Cost) model which produced positive results in international regulatory practice.
According to the decision, by December 2010 the wholesale charge for the termination of calls to mobile networks will fall by approximately 40 percent compared to current charges, with the termination charges of the three Hungarian mobile operators already having been cut by approximately 30 percent over the preceding three years.
Subscriber Numbers
In related news, the regulator also announced that the number of mobile subscriptions rose by 111,000 in November 2008, the three domestic mobile operators thus having 11.95 million customers in total at the end of the month, with a population penetration level of 119.1 %.
Based on the number of SIM cards that can receive calls, by the end of November the market share of T-mobile increased from previous month's 43.90 percent to 43.94 percent, the market share of Vodafone grew from 20.82 percent to 20.88 percent, while Pannon's market share dropped from 35.29 percent to 35.18 percent.
The clients of the three mobile operators ported 4,700 numbers in October. According to the data of the NHH, a total of 241,806 numbers were ported since mobile number portability became available in May 2004.
Posted to the site on 7th January 2009
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/35383.php