LONDON—French telecommunications regulator ART has said that it will cut the price of calls from fixed lines to mobile phones by nearly 40 percent during the course of the next three years. The decision will affect Orange and SFR, the country’s two largest mobile operators.
Under the rate reduction plan proposed by ART, the premium paid by the fixed operator to the mobile operator to establish a connection will be cut by 15 percent between by 2002, by 15 percent between 2002 and 2003 and by 12.5 percent between 2003 and 2004. According to ART, under the current tariff system, the connection fees account for the bulk of the total cost of a fixed-line call to a mobile user.
