Consumers at Heart of UK Mobile Rate Review
Consumers at Heart of UK Mobile Rate Review
20th May , 2009
UK : Ofcom has unveiled new plans to ensure consumers continue to enjoy competitive mobile phone deals into the next decade.
The UK already has a thriving mobile market and almost nine out of ten of us now own at least one mobile phone.
One reason for this is because of action Ofcom took in 2007 to cut mobile termination rates.
These are the wholesale charges that operators make to connect calls to each others' networks.
Competitive call packages
Ofcom set these charges to fall annually until 2011 and by the end of that period termination rates will have fallen by around a quarter. Now we're publishing a new review examining how rates should be set from 2011 to 2015.
Lower termination rates are likely to mean that mobile operators have more flexibility in designing competitive call packages, and pass these benefits and any reduced prices onto consumers.
The consultation sets out six options.
Best outcome for consumers
These range from maintaining the current system, which has already seen rates come down year on year, to a system where the customer's own network is responsible for all costs of making and receiving phone calls.
Some of the options are radical alternatives to the current arrangements and Ofcom is exploring all possible options to ensure the best outcome is secured for consumers in a changing mobile market.
Ofcom Chief Executive Ed Richards said: 'The mobile market has developed significantly with consumers increasingly using innovative services like mobile broadband.
'Our review will reflect these changes to ensure that future termination rates are in the best interests of consumers.
'We want to know what people think of the options and their implications for further innovation and the impact on prices for customers.'
Read Ofcom's consultation on mobile termination rates