The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has called for a sharp reduction in mobile termination rates on voice calls and, for the first time, set a price for operators to charge to receive text messages.

The ACCC said that the wholesale price of terminating calls on a mobile network should be reduced from AUD0.036 (about US$0.025) per minute to AUD0.017, a 53 per cent reduction. It also called for operators to charge AUD0.03 for receiving an SMS.

The new regulated rates cover the period from 1 January 2016 to 30 June 2019.

The regulator recently published its final decision on the price that mobile operators should charge each other and fixed-line network operators for receiving calls on their mobile networks.

The ACCC explained in a statement that while it does not regulate retail charges, either for mobile calls or SMS, it “expects these savings will be passed onto consumers either by way of lower charges or through improved call and SMS inclusions in retail plans”.

ACCC Commissioner Cristina Cifuentes said the final regulated rates reflect the costs of terminating calls and SMS messages on the country’s networks and is based on benchmarking the costs of these services against those in other countries.

She also noted that the majority of mobile calls and text messages are carried on 3G networks, which are more efficient than 2G networks and reduce the cost of termination.

With voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) expected to reduce the costs of terminating mobile calls and text messages, the ACCC said it will monitor the rollout of these services, and may review the rates if there is evidence it is affecting the cost of terminating calls, Cifuentes said.

VoLTE has not yet been commercially rolled out in Australia.