TIRANA, July 14 – Neighboring Italy and Greece, the hosts of around 1 million Albanian migrants and the destinations of around three-quarters of international calls from Albania, have increased mobile termination rates for Albania by five times, surprising Albania’s mobile operators.
“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,” says 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. This high percentage is also associated with the bigger number of Albanian immigrants in these two countries in comparison with other European countries.
Economy experts say the increase of international mobile termination rates will directly affect the costs of mobile operators, including local tariffs and mobile operators’ revenue.
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.
