The cost of mobile phone calls in Gibraltar could soon be forced down… if a UK-based mobile company, which is currently in exploratory talks with the Regulator, decides to apply for a licence, I understand. It will mean that a major international player — as opposed to the ‘cowboy’ operator Calls Direct, which piggy-backed on the old GibNynex and went out of business in a welter of legal actions and debt — challenges what remains effectively a Gibtelecoms monopoly in the mobile field. And it is widely accepted in the industry — and admitted privately by some senior Gibtelecoms officials — that serious competition will push prices down. And as Saphire — the first major player which will offer serious competition to Gibtelecom as it rolls out its services and network on the Rock — flexes its telecoms muscle, Tim Bristow and his Gibtelecoms team may have to revise their pricing of local calls as well. Saphire was scheduled to commence its first operations on 28th July and though initially on a relatively limited scale it will eventually pose a powerful threat to Gibtelecom — some of whose infrastructure it will use. The local telecommunications ‘giant’ has already been forced to cut the cost of private international calls by local customers, extending its 884 service from weekends only to 24/7 in response to operators ings against the European Commission to gain recognition for the roaming rights which the Spanish Government has blocked, arguing that Spain’s politically motivated move breaches EU competition rules that the EC has failed to uphold. As the head of the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority (GRA), Paul Canessa, points out in the Authority’s annual report: “At present there is one licensed mobile phone service operator, Gibtelecom who operate a GSM mobile network. Gibtelecom has not been designated as having ‘Significant Market Power’ in providing mobile telecommunications since many people in Gibraltar use Spanish mobile phone operators, which are considered by the GRA to provide unfair competition to the Gibraltar operator. Many customers in Gibraltar subscribe to the Spanish mobile networks in order to overcome the refusal by Spanish operators to enter into roaming agreements with the Gibraltar operator.” (In December a year ago, Gibtelecom started legal proceedings against the European Commission to gain recognition for the roaming rights which the Spanish Government has blocked, arguing that Spain’s politically motivated move breaches EU competition rules that the EC has failed to uphold. However, although a response from the EC is expected soon, no-one is holding his or her breath. EC responses are notoriously slow.) However, Canessa is slightly more optimistic elsewhere in his report when he points out that Gibraltar Government officials and representatives of the GRA have started technical discussions with their Spanish counterparts “in an attempt to find a solution to the shortage of numbers and to roaming on Spanish networks.” It is, of course, a problem that has bedevilled communications in Gibraltar for many years as Spain has continued to refuse to recognise Gibraltar’s IDD code (350) and the European Commission has continually failed to address the problem. Which Gibtel and GibNynex first complained about almost ten years ago. This has meant that “the availability of numbers, the essential raw material, remains seriously circumscribed in Gibraltar,” Canessa says. In 2003 and again last year, the European Commission informed Gibtelecom that it was closing down Gibtel’s roaming complaint and GibNynex’s numbering complaint without taking action against Spain. Gibtelecom has appealed against the decisions and these are still pending before the European Court of first instance. There’s a sense of déjà vu about all this isn’t there? But though the numbers and roaming battles are likely to drag on… we should be able to grumble to friends here and abroad on our mobiles more cheaply in the not too distant future…

ned and Produced by JD Web Solutions