Federation of Small Businesses on TtR
by Stephen Alambritis ~ June 10th, 2009. Filed under: Campaign Supporters, Terminate The Rate, Uncategorized.Stephen Alambritis is the chief spokesperson for the Federation of Small Businesses.
Business is about communication. To be successful, enterprises need to speak to their suppliers and call their customers. It goes without saying then, that high mobile and landline phone charges just make it harder for businesses to trade, especially during a recession, when cash-flow is already stretched to the limit. The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is supporting the ‘Terminate the Rate’ campaign because lower termination rates will be good for business, as well as good for consumers and for the wider economy.
The UK’s 4.7 million small businesses can ill afford extra charges on their phone bills, and the FSB urges Ofcom, the industry regulator, to reduce termination rates.
In support of the Terminate the Rate campaign, the FSB is encouraging its members to sign the petition and to raise awareness of this issue more widely throughout the country. The FSB wants to see high termination rates made a thing of the past.
The core issue isn’t about termination rates!
Its really about a lack of real retail price competition….
In simple terms there isn’t any in mobile telecoms.
Instead we have all just bamboozled and confused mobile users, by giving then complex and tricky tariffs.
For bundled tariffs, just read “smoke and mirrors”!
With REAL retail price competition retail prices would be driven down this in turn would press down on wholesale prices. This occurs in normal retail markets e.g. shops, because they MUST label prices at the point of sale. In telecoms the “point-of-sale is placing a call.
How can REAL retail price competition be delivered? By regulating for call price information delivered on the mobile phone.
All the 0870, 0844 and 0871 outrage would dissolve away if consumers new PRECISELY how much a call would cost, before placing the call.
This would be a caller option e.g. 0870 3210 100 to call, but…
* 0870 3210 100
….to hear a free price, accurate price announcement. (Call Price Label or Price Check).
To do this some mobile providers may have to simplify tariffs and reseller deals. What a breath of fresh air that would be!
For more details read here:
http://www.flextel.com/ofcom/call-price-labelling.html
For the story of how Ofcom are “barking up the wrong tree” by also trying to reduce retail prices by controlling wholesale price control read here:
http://www.flextel.com/ofcom/
For out battle to get Ofcom to wake up to this chaotic mess of sticking-plaster regulation, go to the Ofcom website and input “FleXtel”.
If termination rates are set too low, then we will end up paying to receive calls like the US mobile model. I certainly don’t want to end up paying to receive sales calls, how is that beneficial?
Do you really believe that the mobile operators will just take lower revenue without countering it with higher charges elsewhere - I don’t.
BT and 3 are lobbying because they can’t compete with the big 4 operators, BT especially seem to have a lot of “political” bite and can spin as well as this Labour government.
Doesn’t matter to me if BT or 3 can or can’t compete with the others. Nor whether this is a campaign to tilt the competitive field. after all, all’s fair in business as in love and war. The important issue for me as a consuemr is transparency. This termination rate business is opaque and confusing. terminate it.