Today has seen a landmark consultation from Ofcom to bring down the charges that mobile networks levy against each other when you make a call. The charges are known in the industry as Mobile Termination Rates.

At the moment, these charges cost you about 5p of every minute of every call you make from your mobile. We’ve been campaigning alongside BT and a whole host of other partners for these outdated rates to be reduced for over a year.

Finally, thanks to your support, Ofcom has done its job and recognised that these charges are unfair, anti-competitive and prop up high prices.

If Ofcom’s plans become a reality, the cost of MTRs will fall from 4.3p today to 0.5p per minute for every call by 2014.

We think this should have been addressed four years ago, and anyone who has followed the Terminate the Rate campaign will know we’re not alone.

So from me – thank you. Your actions led to this, and took public what many in the industry wanted to keep as a little understood technical issue.

From signing the petition on the Terminate the Rate website, to lobbying your local MP to sign the Early Day Motion, the fact that thousands of you recognised the significance of this as a consumer issue has helped Ofcom to give MTRs the attention they deserve.

What happens next?

You may have read that many of the other UK networks are opposed to the reduction in MTRs. They may appeal against this decision and therefore hold up the process to bringing this change in. This means it could be up to a year before we see this decision fully approved, and up to 5 years before it comes into full affect.

From our point of view, we expect to start cutting our prices significantly over the next 2 years. We’ve talked about flat rate tariffs in the past, and while you won’t see those being rolled out immediately, that’s the direction we’re headed in.