Fone Forum

It was reported on the BBC news yesterday, that: "Callers to UK mobile phones could see cheaper bills from 2011 under plans announced by telecoms regulator Ofcom.

It has proposed cutting the cost mobile phone firms can charge for connecting a call from another network from 4.3 pence per minute to
0.5p by 2015.

Ofcom has also issued new rules to make it quicker and easier to switch mobile phone providers.

Customers should, by 2011, be able to change mobile providers in one working day rather than two.

In addition, mobile phone companies will have to issue users with the PAC code they need in order to keep their existing mobile number by text message within a maximum of two hours, Ofcom said".

We wait to see !        ;)

There is an article on this on TheRegister (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/01/mobile_number_termination_rates/).

given that calls from landlines to landlines keep being put up in price, and the mobile networks keep increasing opayg rates, for example 3 have followed their mendacious Terminate the Rate campaign by increasing their own call charges for new payg customers from 12 to 25p a minute, I wouldn't express much confidence that this ha'penny drop will have much effect at all

You may be proved right andy, but please note the price rise you quote on '3' pre-pay is limited to the new 3Pay tariff.    :o

It is still 12p per minute on all Flat12 SIMs.    ;)

TOOTHLESS WATCHDOG Ofcom published its proposals to reduce the cost of making calls to mobile phones by 2015.

Ofcom's 155 page waffle-fest about Mobile Termination Rates (MTR) suggest a steady decrease in the amounts mobile operators charge users to call devices on their networks.  The current rules that limit the MTRs will expire on 31 March 2011 and those public servants at the telecom watchdog are burning the taxpayers' oil finding out what should be done, if anything, after that period to try to control the urge of mobile operators to charge whatever they like.

The findings (http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/wmctr/wmvct_consultation.pdf) boil down to a table of proposed charges bringing the cost down from 4.3 pence per minute all the way to 0.5 pence per minute by 2014/15.  These charges would cover Vodafone, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and 3.  Other operators, presumably the virtual ones such as Virgin and Tesco, will have their prices "set on the basis of being fair and reasonable," which seems like a bureaucratic way of saying, whatever they like.

All this, supposedly, adds up to 32.7 million homes and businesses saving on making calls to mobiles.  Both BT and 3 lobbied for this last year (http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1560110/ofcom-petitioned-cut-mobile-rates), with 258 MPs joining in on the act.  The public, unsurprisingly, was quick to voice their opinions and an online petition managed to gather 114,259 signatures.

Clearly there's support for this to go through, but Ofcom's reports are generally used as kindling in the fires of mobile operator executives' offices.  Ofcom is willing to hear responses, presumably from the mobile operators who are dead set against limiting another way to make money out of nothing, until 23 June 2010.

Only after then will we start to see how far mobile termination rates really might come down.

Source:-   TheInquirer (http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1599582/ofcom-proposes-lower-rates-mobiles).

I remember when I was leaving T-mobile almost 4 years ago c/s assistant sent me PAC code immediately after requesting the code.

dlR