TIRANA, Sept. 8 – Albanians have been facing considerably higher rates on international calls in the past few weeks due to a sharp hike in termination rates, the fees which foreign telecommunication operators charges to Albanian operators.
Albania’s mobile communication authority, AKEP, says the situation is a result of the differentiation in rates EU mobile operators have made toward non-EU countries such as Albania.
The situation has affected all four mobile operators in Albania which have sharply reduced their international minutes in their monthly pre-paid bundles, increasing the cost of international calls especially to neighboring Italy and Greece, the hosts of about 1 million Albanian migrants.
Last July, a marketing company announced neighboring Italy and Greece the destinations of around three-quarters of international calls from Albania, had increased mobile termination rates for Albania by five times.
“The increase in international mobile termination rates means that Albanian operators will have to pay five times more for outgoing calls from Albania to foreign operators in Greece and Italy, thus increasing costs of international calls in the Albanian market,” said Publix, a marketing company in Albania.
According to data obtained by the country’s electronic communications authority, AKEP, the traffic of calls to Greece and Italy covers about 75 percent of the total international outgoing calls traffic.
The decision to increase termination rates fivefold, means mobile operators in Albania will pay Italy and Greece more than 40 million euros per year, 5 times more than a year ago for the same volume of traffic based on the current international outgoing calls traffic from Albania to Greece and Italy.
“Faced with this situation, it seems that mobile operators in the country are left with no other choice but to review the international minutes and offers towards Greece and Italy, in an effort to find an effective and immediate solution that would meet the clients’ needs without affecting their pockets, otherwise there will be an inevitable impact on the state budget and local operators which will negatively affect investments in the country,” says the statement by the PR company.
