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(Alliance News) - The UK Office of Communications on Thursday proposed a cap on termination rates for calls made and received in the UK.
A termination rate is a wholesale charge paid by caller's network provider to the recipient's phone company for connecting the call.
The regulator said it has launched a consultation for regulating the wholesale telecoms markets that underpin landline and mobile telephone calls in the UK to protect customers from high prices.
Ofcom is proposing a cap of 0.389 pence per minute for calls to mobiles, which is lower than the current cap of 0.468p per minute. The regulator is also proposing to continue applying this mobile termination cap to calls to 070 numbers.
For calls to landlines, the current cap of 0.0292p per minute has been maintained.
Ofcom said for calls to a UK number from abroad, it is proposing that UK telecom companies should charge no more than the rate they are charged when their customers make calls to that international destination.
"As industry moves away from using the traditional telephone network, we expect companies will increasingly interconnect with each other using the more modern internet protocol interconnection networks. So we have set out how we intend to regulate BT Group PLC's IP interconnection service," the watchdog said.
The consultation closes on October 7 and Ofcom intends to publish its final decisions before the new regulation takes effect in April 2021.
By Tapan Panchal; tapanpanchal@alliancenews.com
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