Last March, Ofcom published its plans for Wholesale Mobile Voice Call Termination charges; the inter-company ‘mobile termination rates’ paid when calls are connected from fixed-line phones to mobile phones. It set a decreasing scale of charges for UK network operators.
Everything Everywhere, BT, Hutchison 3G UK and Vodafone all appealed to the Competition Appeal Tribunal, arguing that the MTR changes unfairly favoured their competitors.
The Competition Appeals Tribunal has now ruled in favour of Ofcom’s plans, which means the wholesale cost per minute will fall from the 2010 figure of 4.18p to 0.65p in 2015 - a slightly larger drop than Ofcom’s original recommendation. Consumer-facing prices are expected to fall by a similar amount.