Kabbani says termination rates in Saudi should fall even further

The CEO of Zain Saudi Arabia, Hassan Kabbani, called for further reductions in call termination fees after the sector regulator slashed rates by 40 per cent.

Termination fees are those charged when a call originating on one network terminates on another network, with the caller network charged by the operator of the network on which the call is received.

High termination fees benefit the larger network operators, which have a bigger market share and fewer calls going "off-net" to other providers.

The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) has cut these fees to 0.15 riyals (US$0.04) from 0.25 riyals, it said in a statement on its website.

It did not say whether this would be with immediate effect, but a CITC report from September states call termination fees in countries it benchmarked Saudi against were 0.02-0.13 riyals.

STC and Mobily between them have 83 per cent of the kingdom’s mobile subscribers, according to Zain. The company has been lobbying to have charges reduced, arguing it is unfairly penalised with higher network charges due to its smaller customer base.