The ITU has published a new guide and tool intended to help regulators worldwide introduce fair rules governing mobile voice roaming.
The guide and accompanying online tool are designed to help calculate the costs to operators of providing mobile roaming services.
It has been developed based on a study of roaming costs by the ITU-T Study Group 3 that spanned more than two years.
Announcing the move, the ITU said its members had been calling for greater clarity into the degree to which prices consumers pay for roaming services are commensurate to the costs of providing the services among operators.
“ITU has a unique public-private partnership of members,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao.
“Our members are working together to ensure that operators see fair return from the investments that enable their customers to roam, and that end users pay a fair price for roaming services.”
ITU director of telecommunications standardization Chaesub Lee added that mobile roaming continues to receive much attention at the national, regional and international level.
“The new ITU-T NRA technical guide and companion online tool will frame the issues at play in debates concerning mobile roaming, providing a common basis for ITU members to move these debates forward.”