The European Commission reported on the implementation of the current Roaming II Regulation and proposed the Roaming III Regulation to run until 2022. This combined wholesale and retail price caps for voice, SMS and data (the retail data price cap being new). It also proposed the introduction of...

The European Commission has proposed its third Roaming Regulation to cap the prices charged for international mobile roaming, to ensure transparency of prices and to eliminate the risk of "bill shock". The present proposal would come into force in 2012 and extends until 2022. It adds a price cap...

Report on a conference reviewing the state of play of the European Union's second Roaming Regulation and consideration of options for a legislative successor. A number of possible structural remedies were rejected in favour of the existing model of retail and wholesale price caps, with a...

The persistence of high prices for international mobile roaming services, in contrast to falling national mobile prices, has been a recognized item on the global regulatory agenda for half a decade. In Africa, there have been studies and discussions about regulatory options in regional economic...

Once governments in Africa were persuaded to create markets for mobile telecommunications, a complex game of buying and selling licences and licensed operators began, that has seen the rise and fall of multinational enterprises (MNEs). Their geographic footprints reflect complex patterns of when...

In March 2011 three national network operations were exchanged between América Móvil and Digicel, withdrawing from competing in each other’s markets: El Salvador, Honduras and Jamaica. The effect was significantly to reduce the levels of competition at the time and in the future, by...

Governments in a number of countries are concerned about the high surcharges for international mobile roaming and instances of “bill shock”. Russia has used competition law to force down excessive prices. Singapore has introduced consumer protection against bill shock. The USA has consulted...

The European Court of Justice upheld the Roaming Regulation (717 2007), rejecting the challenge by the four largest mobile operators that the legal basis on Article 95 EC (now Article 115 TFEU) was invalid and that it violated the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity. The European...

Users are increasingly concerned by the apparently arbitrary and often exorbitant charges for roaming services on their mobile telephones. Charges seem to have no relationship to costs or to best practice. Service providers make little effort to inform customers of the charges they will incur....

The purpose of the paper is to identify global best practice in the regulation of quality of service on cellular wireless networks. Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents an identification of issues from the literature and an analysis of examples of activities of regulators around the...