What the ACCC does

  • We set the terms for the termination of wholesale voice services.
  • We regulate mobile terminating services to ensure consumers can call mobile phones on any network, regardless of provider.
  • We provide advice to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) on spectrum allocation limits.
  • We monitor the mobile services market.

What the ACCC can't do

  • We don’t set the prices of retail mobile services.
  • We don’t set prices for the termination of SMS text services.

On this page

About mobile terminating services

To use your mobile phone to make calls it must be connected to a mobile phone network. The network you are connected to depends on who your mobile service provider is.

When you receive a mobile call from someone who is on a different mobile phone network than you the call is:

  1. first transferred from their network to your network
  2. then carried over your network to your mobile phone. This final step is mobile termination.

Network operators charge each other for providing these mobile termination services.

What we do in regulating mobile termination

The ACCC is responsible for regulating access to wholesale telecommunications services. As part of this role, we regulate mobile termination services.

We set the terms for the termination of wholesale voice services. This includes the price terms and non-price terms. It is known as the mobile terminating access service.

We regulate mobile termination services to:

  • stop mobile operators abusing their monopoly over mobile termination
  • keep mobile phone services competitive for consumers.

Because we regulate mobile terminating services:

  • mobile operators can’t refuse to provide mobile termination to other network operators
  • prices, terms and conditions set by the ACCC apply to mobile termination services when operators can’t agree on what’s fair
  • mobile phone users can call any mobile phone user in Australia, no matter what network they use.

The legal basis of our functions

Our work is under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and the Telecommunications Act 1997.

Mobile projects

Mobile services projects

Declaration and access determination projects

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