Roaming caps a disastrous failure, claims Austrian operators

The introduction in 2007 of price caps on roaming voice calls has been severely damaging on the three main Austrian mobile operators, claims independent research conducted by the University of Hamburg.

The study concluded mobilkom austria, T-Mobile Austria and Orange Austria--which commissioned the investigation--had experienced a total EBITDA decline of €81.5 million directly attributed to the introduction of the roaming voice price caps. The author, Professor Kruse, stated this EBITDA decline had a direct impact on the investment budgets of the three operators, which had decreased by over 41 per cent in the first half of 2008 compared to the same period of the previous year.

Of more interest was that the increase in call volumes forecast by the EU did not take place, despite the fact the average price per roaming minute, for both active and passive calls, decreased by 43 per cent. According to Kruse, the Austrian telecoms market had seen considerable price reductions since deregulation, "but the intervention measures of the European commission in some areas of price shaping had resulted in negative effects on national price structures."

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