Final statement: Mobile call termination market review 2018-21

Final statement published 27 March 2018

Mobile call termination is a wholesale service offered by a mobile provider to connect a customer (i.e. call recipient) on its network. When fixed or mobile providers enable their customers to call a UK mobile number, they pay a wholesale charge to the mobile provider which terminates the call. This charge is called a mobile termination rate. Mobile termination rates are set on a per-minute basis and are currently subject to regulation.

We published a consultation document on 27 June 2017 outlining our regulatory proposals for mobile call termination markets in April 2018 – March 2021. We published a further consultation on 17 November 2017 (and a supplementary document on 24 January 2018) which included an updated list of providers whom we provisionally identified as having significant market power. We have taken account of points raised by stakeholders in response to our consultations, and information we have collected since the consultations.

On 23 February 2018, we notified our intended measures and an explanatory draft statement setting out the reasons for them to the European Commission (EC), BEREC and other National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) and we published our draft statement on the Ofcom website. In its decision letter of 23 March 2018, the EC stated that it had examined the notification and had no comments.

In this document we set out our decision on how we will regulate mobile call termination provided by each mobile provider active in the relevant markets.