Service provider vRoam Global has slammed Telstra for making far too small a concession to more transparent mobile roaming charges. vRoam chief executive Danny Nathanson welcomed what he said were Telstra’s and Vodafone’s move in the right direction for consumers, but claimed they had not gone far enough.

”Australia is lagging behind other countries, where carriers have had to provide consumers with pricing indexes for years. In this country, global mobile roaming is one of the few services where you only find out how much you will be charged after using the service. It’s a consumer’s right to know in advance,” he said.

vRoam made a submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s enquiry in June 2003, calling for greater transparency in roaming pricing structures and an industry Code of Practice. The ACCC has yet to reveal its findings. Nathanson said that Telstra’s domestic mobile calls while roaming were still subject to large variations with no fixed rates and there are still hundreds of countries with no fixed pricing structure. According to vRoam’s analysis, one minute calls from Australia to the US while roaming are priced variously at $2.30 (Vodafone), $2.72 (Optus), $3.08 (Telstra) and $1.51 for vRoam.

Vodafone was the first Australian carrier to release a set pricing structure for mobile roaming customers, in June 2004. ”Although customers can now gauge how much they are likely to pay for mobile roaming, the cost is still exorbitant,” Nathanson added.