Covered costs and the scope
The mobile voice call termination rate covers the costs associated with traffic from the terminating operator's interconnection port in backbone network (inclusive), to the IMT antenna on the radio access network (inclusive) to which the call recipient is connected. These costs include:
CAPEX for the network: the cost of acquiring the network elements and other costs necessary to place the equipment (e.g., subcontractors, installation, design) as well as the associated capital costs.
OPEX for the network: the cost of maintaining and operating the network elements.
Wholesale costs: specific costs required to provide services involving other operators (e.g., billing costs, contract management costs, regulatory cost)
The fixed voice call termination rate covers the costs associated with traffic from the terminating operator's interconnection port in backbone network (inclusive) to a defined point distinguishing traffic-related costs and other costs, typically the point where the first concentration of traffic occurs (e.g. DSLAM, MSAN, OLT). These costs include:
CAPEX for the network: the cost of acquiring network elements and other costs necessary to place the equipment (e.g., subcontractors, installation, design) as well as the associated capital costs.
OPEX for the network: the cost of maintaining and operating the network elements.
Wholesale costs: specific costs required to provide services involving other operators (e.g., billing costs, contract management costs, regulatory costs)
Traffic-unrelated costs are already included in the price for renting access (e.g., in a wholesale scheme this would be covered by the LLU charge), which includes the connection up to the user's premises.
Interconnection ports are part of the termination service, and their costs are therefore included in the termination rates. The main cost components that are included, are the cost of deploying, modifying and removing the port.
It should be noted that some costs associated with interconnection ports are not necessarily covered. For example, collocation is necessary for hosting the interconnection ports, but the costs of collocation are not covered by termination rates. Where multiplexing is located downstream from the point of interconnection in the terminating operator's network, the costs are covered, in other cases not.
Internal transit occurs when the terminating operator owns both fixed and mobile networks and the call is e.g., originated in its fixed network but terminated in its mobile network. In this case, the terminating operator needs to transit the call from its fixed network to its mobile network. Basically, this internal transit is not different from the external transit (see below). It is a different service to termination and therefore operators may charge for it above the termination rates.
In practice, this situation arises when the originating operator does not have a direct connection to the terminating operator's relevant fixed/mobile network.
No. Termination rates do not cover external transit i.e., the transfer of a call from the originating operator's network (or from another transit) to the terminating operator's network (or to another transit).
Yes. The transfer of a call from the point of entry to the network (point of interconnection) to the called party on the same network (national transfer) is included in the termination rate (see SWD - EC Working Document - pages 3-4).
Yes, if the call is terminated on a satellite phone with a mobile or fixed number from the national numbering plan. If the satellite phone number is from another numbering plan (neither mobile nor fixed), then the termination rates under the Delegated Regulation do not apply.
No. Termination rates do not apply to calls to numbers used for value-added services i.e., premium or freephone lines.