Cell Phone Rates Going Up in Iceland?

I cannot believe it. Now, in every corner on earth, cell phone companies are in a rat race to lower their rates and get more customers. This is the case even in the poorest of the countries in the world. So, I really got shocked to see that cell phone rates are not decreasing but increasing in Iceland. Iceland Review Online reported:

The Icelandic cell phone market is characterized by lack of competition, where two telecommunications companies divide the market between them. Síminn, or Iceland Telecom, holds a 65 percent share of the market, while OgVodafone has a 35 percent share. These are the findings of a working group commissioned by the Icelandic Post and Telecom Administration (PTA) and its counterparts in the other Nordic countries to compare the mobile phone markets in those countries. Morgunbladid online reports.

Among the findings is that prices to consumers have gone up in Iceland since 2002, while they have decreased in the other Nordic countries. At the same time mobile phone use, measured in the number of minutes per customer, has remained steady in Iceland while it has increased in the other Nordics.

It seems that the mobile phone operators in Iceland are very happy with the way things are going and they have some sort of a gentlemen’s agreement not to upset the market balance. However, for the cell phone users it is like a nightmare. All the time, these users can read in Internet or see in their TV channels about the intense competition in the cell phone world and they are out of it.

Monopoly is always a bad thing. The government of Iceland should intervene and ensure the arrival of more telecom operators in the market. Iceland had 290,100 cell phone connections in 2004. This figure is quite impressive considering the fact that Iceland has a population of 294,000. If needed Iceland government should actively seek foreign investment.

What is your idea about it?