Termination rates in for 70 percent cut

Mobile termination fees are on their way down, with a source telling Reuters that EC Commissioner Viviane Reding is planning to publish draft guidelines that will cut the fees by 70 percent.

According to the source, the changes will come in 2011 and, while the EC won’t mandate any numerical caps, it will specify what charges operators can include as part of termination rates, which are expected to end up around 1.5 to 2.5 eurocents a minute.

Reding says that she expects that as a result of the termination rate cuts, consumers’ tariffs will drop. Seems a little optimistic to me – surely some operators will end up losing money as a result of the termination rate cuts and for those who end up better off, there’s no guarantee that they’ll end up putting that money towards cheaper rates rather than their shareholders’ returns.