José María Rodríguez, Associate Director in the Telecoms practice at Frontier Economics, was today interviewed by the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio about the latest developments of the mobile industry in Perú.

José María’s interview focused on the entry of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) in Peru and regulation of mobile termination rates (MTRs). These are charges that mobile operators pay each other for terminating the calls on their networks. José María highlighted the impact that MTRs have on mobile penetration. Sharp reductions in MTRs mean that operators receive lower revenues from incoming calls. This makes users who receive a significant volume of calls less profitable to operators, and these are often low income users who cannot afford to make many outgoing calls themselves. As a result, there is likely to be a reduced penetration of mobile phone use, particularly important in countries like Peru where 20% of households do not currently have mobile phones.

The full interview can be found here (in Spanish).

For more information, please contact Julia Caldano on j.caldano@frontier-economics.com, or call +34 91 343 2350.