Article about UM

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by snaimon

from the article...

Can someone explain? A landline call from Germany to a US mobile on my calling cards costs the same as a landline call from Germany to a US landline -- dirt cheap. So what "mobile termination charges" are they talking about? Why do they need a "local interconnect"?

I don't know what a "local interconnect" really means here. But, as to "mobile termination charges" - I think it's about the "receiving party pays" part of the roaming fee. When you call a US mobile phone, you pay the same rate as to US landline and the receiving party pays the "mobile part" of the call. But when you call a non-US mobile phone roaming in the USA, you pay the rate to the mobile phone in its "home country" and the receiving party pays the cost of forwarding the call to the US and the cost of receiving the call in the US mobile network. I think that "mobile termination charges" means the money you pay for receiving calls due to RPP rules.
Now, the termination fee to UM is enough to forward the call to many CPP pays without charging the receiving party with any surcharge. But it's not enough to forward the call to the US and to pay the local "receiving party fee". It seems strange since forwarding to the US is (or at least should be) really cheap and the "receiving fee" should be (what I conclude by checking retail rates of US prepaids) somewhere from 10 to at most 50 US cents. So, why the hell, since UM receives a lot a money for calls coming to +423 663 and +44 7937 numbers, it still has to charge to receive a call in the US €0.79 on +423 and $0.99 on +44
on top? Do US operators charge roaming SIMs for receiving calls much more than US SIMs?
I can't see any other explanation for the current pricing...