BT forecasts that landline customers will pay £4m in Mobile Termination Rates over the Christmas period - “Like Santa Claus charging for delivery.”

Britain’s mobile operators are about to land themselves a £4m Christmas bonus through high Mobile Termination Rates as Britons call mobile phones from landlines with the season’s greetings. Mobile Termination Rates (MTRs) are charges paid by operators to connect calls to mobiles and are at the root of the high cost of calling mobiles.

3 UK, BT, consumer, business and member groups have joined forces to call for a significant cut in the cost of calling mobile phones. Their Terminate the Rate Campaign is calling for an end to high Mobile Termination Rates, which can account for as much as 80 percent of the price per minute of a call from a home phone line to a mobile. The campaign is calling on Ofcom to drive down the cost of MTRs; more than 120,000 people have now signed its petition demanding that MTRs be less than a penny.

MTRs currently account for 4.7 pence, or more, of every minute of a call to a mobile. This is more than 10-times the termination rate charged to call a fixed-line phone. Last year UK mobile operators charged £750 million in MTRs just for allowing fixed-line customers to call mobiles. Between 24 December 2009 and 2 January 2010 BT forecasts that landline users will pay around £4m in Mobile Termination Rates.

John Petter, MD, Consumer, BT Retail said:

“When family and friends are out and about at Christmas and New Year or that special someone has unwrapped their new mobile, they’ll be expecting your call. Unfortunately they won’t realise just how much the mobile operators are looking forward to that call too.

“Mobile Termination Rates at this time of year are like Santa charging for delivery, and on top of that, they’re not just for Christmas - let’s hope that through Terminate the Rate they’re not for life either.”

High MTRs prevent lower fixed-line to mobile call prices, and prop up high mobile-to-mobile call prices. They also make flat rate deals, popular with internet users and for calling between fixed-lines, impossible to offer. The Terminate the Rate campaign wants to terminate the unfair rate and bring it down to around a penny or less, saving consumers and businesses hundreds of millions. We’re asking consumers and businesses to register their support for a fairer deal at www.terminatetherate.org.