§ Mr. Hilary BennTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment the OFT has made of the comparative cost of telephone calls from the UK to(a) India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and (b) the USA, Australia and New Zealand; and if he will make a statement. [113143]
§ Ms HewittOFTEL has the main responsibility for telecoms competition issues. The market for international calls from the UK is competitive with more than 70 operators providing services. Prices for international calls have risen by only 7 per cent. in the last five years and BT's share of the market for international calls has fallen to below 37 per cent. for business users and below 70 per cent. for residential users.
There is still nevertheless a marked discrepancy in the cost of calling different countries.
BT's headline retail prices for the routes in question together with the accounting rates are:
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£ Route Retail price per minute1 Accounting rate (a) India 1.20 0.91 Pakistan 1.35 0.81 Bangladesh 1.35 1.13 (b) USA 0.24 0.13 Australia 0.49 0.25 New Zealand 0.49 0.14 1 Inclusive of VAT The differences in the cost of calls between the two groups of country above arise because of the different stages of liberalisation in these countries and the different charges for terminating incoming international traffic (known as accounting rates). The telecoms markets of group (b) countries are completely liberalised compared to the closed markets of the group (a) countries which have big net inflows of traffic from the UK coupled with high accounting rates. Furthermore, there are much higher call volumes between group (b) countries and the UK compared to group (a).
The Government and OFTEL continue to participate in international meetings, particularly through the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to put pressure on countries with high accounting rates to reduce them.