Teligen 26 March 2010. Last Friday the 2010 versions of the OECD Price Benchmarking baskets were formally adopted. These basket have been long in the making, starting out with an expert workshop discussing the methods for price benchmarking back in June 2009. However, this long process also assures that the methodology has maximum support from the involved parties in the OECD countries, and that users of the baskets can get the best possible tool for price analysis. Teligen has been instrumental in driving this process forward, and has also acted as an "information broker" to maintain the necessary link between the often confidential information behind these baskets and the final basket definitions. The new baskets were originally proposed by Teligen, and also include new elements developed by Teligen. It is now 15 years ago that Teligen published the first update of the T-Basket system, providing easy and up-to-date access to OECD price benchmarking results. Since then the basket definitions have changed, along with changes in the telecoms markets, and the OECD baskets have now again been updated with current usage data from operators and regulators around the world. The 2010 OECD basket definitions do include a number of new elements, like:

• Selective discounts simulating the effects of discounted calls to selected telephone numbers
• A new call cost calculation method that also incorporates an approximation of the distribution of call durations
• A simplification of the PSTN basket's call elements in line with the simplifications in fixed line tariff structures in recent years

All in all these new baskets should now be even closer to the real world, and even easier to understand and use. The February 2010 T-Basket update is going out today and does incorporate these new elements. Strategy Analytics is also planning a webinar in April to explain and discuss these new developments. We will keep you posted. Posted by Halvor Sannaes, Director Tariff Services hsannaes@strategyanalytics.com