Mobile operators Vodafone, O2 and Meteor have voluntarily agreed to reduce their wholesale charges for connecting a call to their network to 7.99 cent by the beginning of 2012.
Currently, the operators' wholesale rates vary between 10-12 cent. These are charges mobile operators levy on other phone companies to connect a call to their network.
ComReg estimates that the industry will save €15 million next year as a result, and this will increase each year to €90-€100 million in 2012.
There is no obligation on the operators to pass the savings on to end-users, but industry sources say that the move is likely to benefit consumers.
The reduction in wholesale mobile termination rates will cut the underlying cost of calls made from fixed and mobile networks to mobile phones.
Vodafone and O2 will reduce rates by an average of 3.5 per cent each year over the next five years. Meteor has chosen to adopt a stepped approach, reducing rates by different amounts on January 1st over the next five years.
A Meteor spokeswoman said the stepped approach meant that there would be more certainty about prices in the coming years. In a statement released yesterday, ComReg said that it welcomed the commitment by the Republic's three largest mobile operators to voluntarily reduce termination rates.
ComReg said that it reserved the right to intervene further in the market if the promised reductions were not delivered.
The regulator said that it would "benchmark Irish rates against other EU rates and will ensure that the trend in Irish rates is consistent with other EU countries".
An O2 statement pointed out that the reductions are in addition to the price cuts it has implemented in the past four years.
"The reductions have also been made at a time when inflation has been running at or around 5 per cent and other utilities have been increasing their bills to consumers," the statement continued.
The agreement comes against the backdrop of a reduction in roaming charges for mobile users travelling within Europe, which was imposed on operators by the European Commission.
From the end of this month the maximum Irish mobile phone users can be charged while roaming is 49 cent per minute to make calls and 24 cent to receive calls. ComReg data for the first quarter of this year showed that the average monthly revenue per mobile phone user in the Republic was €44.48, which is substantially higher than the EU average of €29.63.
