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HomeColumnsJasmine's ColumnStop unfair mobile charges
Jasmine's Column

Stop unfair mobile charges

August 24, 2009

Jasmine Birtles

I’ve just added my name to what I think is a really good campaign – Terminate the Rate.

It’s campaigning against is the rate per minute that mobile companies charge other networks, including landlines, to call people on their network. When you call a friend on a different mobile network, their network will charge your network a fee for receiving (or ‘carrying’) the call. This is called a Mobile Termination Rate or MTR. The current charge is around 4.7p or more for every minute you’re connected to another network.

You can imagine just how much they’re making out of us because of this offensive fee. It goes into billions per year.

The current mobile termination rates cost you up to 80% of the price per minute of a call from a home phone line to a mobile. What a waste! It’s definitely not necessary or fair and is, in my opinion, simply a way of raking in cash for nothing. The termination rate for calling BT fixed-line services (known as landlines) from your mobile are just 0.3p per minute. But if you call a mobile from a landline the 4.7p (or more) MTR applies. The termination rate costs you up to 80% of the price per minute of a call from a home line to a mobile!

This is all legal (like 0870 and 0845 numbers are legal, although they fleece us) but I don’t think it’s fair and nor do the people campaigning at Terminate the Rate.

If you agree then go to their website and sign the petition against these charges. It looks like the only way Ofcom will stamp down hard on these excessive charges is if enough people complain. So add your voice if you think this is wrong. Stop this gross over-charging.

2 Responses to “Stop unfair mobile charges”

  1. monica says:
    August 27, 2009 at 9:56 am

    Totally agree – this is underhand and I did not realise that it existed. This is as bad as BT charging additional money when paying their bills via my bank into their bank account but not by direct debit.
    Is there a place to complain about that too?

    Thanks

    Reply
  2. Steven says:
    August 27, 2009 at 9:37 am

    Hi Jasmine,

    From temrinatetherate, it appears that one of your readers have been charged excessively for calls to 0800 number (whcih is supposed to be free!) as calls to 0845 numbers..

    There are work around to this. For 0800 number, one can dial 0370 437 0800 (03 numbers standard numbers that will come out of mobile inclusive minutes) and then when the system answers, dial 080xxxxxxx# and wait to be connected (do not press the call button again). In this way, the mobile operator only ‘sees’ the call to 0370 number and charge accordingly at much lower rates/or free (which comes out of the bundle minutes).

    http://www.qxCall.co.uk/qxcall also providers a indirect access service to call 0845 (4p daytime, 1.5 evenings compared to Mobile 20p ish) and 0870 numbers (2.1p at all time vs mobile’s 20p ish). The user will need to purchase credit, then dial a landline 01 number and then will get a prompt. The user then dial the 0845/0870 number which will then be charged at the 4p/1.5p, 2.1p low rates.

    As for terminate the rate – this is a double edges sword – no landline operator will give out a free phone or to allow a line to be left connected for free without payment (vs mobile Pay as you go). I have no preference as to which way it goes, but for sure, some people will win, and some others will lose.

    Reply

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