Yesterday 3 and BT joined forces with businesses and consumer groups to launch a campaign calling for Ofcom to make a big cut in mobile termination rates.
The launch of the ‘Terminate the Rate’ campaign is supported by Federation of Small Businesses, National Union of Students, Britain’s General Union and coincided with the release of a new Ofcom consultation document on mobile termination rates (MTRs) from 2011-2015.
Larger operators are reluctant to reduce termination rates because their large customer bases mean they bring in high revenues from the charges. Meanwhile, smaller operators such as 3 send out more calls than they receive, making termination rates a greater cost.
According to BT, termination rates currently cost the consumer £700 million per year in calling costs.
3’s CEO Kevin Russell said, “If termination rates went down, we could see an opportunity to bring calling charges down to 1p per minute.”
BT’s MD of consumer and retail, John Petter commented, “Fixed-line phone users know that calling a mobile is too expensive. We've done what we can to bring down that cost, but with MTRs accounting for up to 80% of the price per minute of a call from a home phone line to a mobile, the only way to get better prices is to Terminate the unfair Rate.”