irrelevant wrote on Sep 7^th, 2008 at 3:02pm:
Exactly!  Mobile providers will probably use it to make more money and mentioning slightly lower calls but "forgetting" to mention the callee gets charged MORE than the reduction in caller's costs.

Also, depending on tariff, mobile companies are offering unlimited (subject to fair use as always) mins and/or texts albeit mostly to their own network.  Would there be such a thing as unlimited tariffs under US style charging?

I think the main issue is that of price transparency.

Most people are pretty well educated that calling mobiles from a landline is going to cost them more than calling other landlines, and the costs of calling landlines and other mobiles from a mobile are generally pretty well explained when choosing a mobile contract, where both types of call are generally now treated equally.

However 08* call costs are not at all clear - it's a rare mobile company that quotes its call costs to these in marketing litrature, and the continued use of "local rate" and "national rate" tags just misleads the consumer of the true costs of these calls from any network.  Whilst this situation continues, I see the role of this site, for instance, as very important.

As for as the question of who should pay for the call ..  whilst it does seem that there is an argument for "called party pays" on mobiles by virtue of people who carry a mobile wish to be contactable, you have to bear in mind the difference between an individual who will primarilly be receiving personal calls, and a business where the calls will mainly be of a commercial nature, and whom will be expecting to make a profit at the end of the year.

Now 084/087 calls are generally to businesses, whom are already trying to make money from us on the products they sell us.  For them to get an income (in whatever form) from our calls is icing on the cake to them.    It also shows just how greedy they are that you can often find an 080 freephone number for sales calls, but 087 or even premium rate calls for after-sales support!

Mobile numbers are generally used by individuals whom make no money from receiving the calls.  The high price for calling one from a landline is shared among the telcos, and is down to the high charges the mobile operators make to the landline operators for taking the calls.  

Historically this was because there was a massive investment needed to set up the networks, but surely this is almost complete now, and their ongoing expenses should only be maintenance and upgrades, so there should be scope for dramatic reductions in the interconnect charges.

If it were to happen, then things would probably settle down after transition, but plenty of confusion and upset would occur until then

And there could be advantages

For example, if mobile termination rates dropped, there would be a good chance that they would be included in landline inclusive packages. They'd certainly be cheaper to call.

On a mobile contract that has say 600 inclusive minutes at the moment, some will be to landlines and some to mobiles. If the mobile termination rates dropped, then there should be either a drop in the monthly rental, or more likely the rental would stay the same and calls (including received) would be increased to 1000 or 1200 minutes.

Someone who wanted to receive calls on a landline but sometimes forward it to their mobile would be a lot better off. I understand this is what US users like; if they have both landline and mobile contracts with inclusive minutes, then call diversion doesn't cost them anything at all.

For mobiles on payg, outgoing call rates should drop, but I suspect that this is where the most scope for disappointment would be. Perhaps there would be conditional top-up packages that included free incoming calls, but it would be pretty confusing.

The other aspect, which I suspect Ofcom hasn't thought through as much, is that the costs of roaming abroad would be affected. Unless something like this was done on a Europe-wide basis, the UK networks would argue that they couldn't support  cheap or free roaming, and they'd be right.

There are a number of global roaming  SIMs which have free incoming calls in plenty of countries, which we've discussed on occasions. The possibility of free roaming arises because of a margin built into the incoming termination fee, which would not be possible if that was only a penny or cent a minute. Thus when people ask if there are free roaming SIMs with Hong Kong numbers (because it's cheap to call there), I reply that I doubt it will ever be possible (in fact there is a HK-based SIM, but with other numbers forwarded to it).

My O2 contract includes the My Europe Extra add-on, which means free incoming calls in Europe, which means it's effectively the  same as those above. But if O2 only got a small amount for people calling me when I'm abroad, it would cost them too much to divert to the European network where I was, unless they are all concurrently dropping termination fees as well. Outside Europe, the cost of roaming would probably increase. And, as some of the global SIMs have Jersey and IoM mobile numbers, would their regulatory authorities decide to parallel Ofcom moves, or stay out of  it?

It does seem rather late for this to be considered, now that mobile calls are on the point of exceeding landline calls, and some contracts now average out to only 2 or 3 pence a minute anyway.

I'm reminded of the old joke or anecdote about someone asking for directions, where the reply is that it's a bit complicated to explain, if I were you I wouldn't start from here.

bbb_uk wrote on Sep 15^th, 2008 at 8:06pm:


Yes. I think most of them  have fairly simple top-ups compared to here, just credit which then pays for incoming and outgoing calls at about 10 to 20 cents a minute depending on the amount of credit added

Here, we see loads of different types of conditional monthly top-up bonuses, and my guess would be that this is where bundles of incoming calls might be promoted most if we were to see these changes

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2008 at 10:28pm:


... can wait for SCV to receive them and let us know here .

Just thought I'd bump this thread - I've just remembered the deadline for this consultation is in two days' time!

Yup. I had always liked the UK style of charging, being a modest user at the start. But the UK should change; and I am still a modest user. At the moment everyone likes the "free" handset, for which everyone pays forever.
Come on UK, time to change - and then perhaps consumer power might work. After all the operators might find that people suddenly become more aware of the costs.
Who will be first to change in the new economy?