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Main Content: Carers UK joins ‘Terminate the Rate’ campaign to cut mobile call costs
Campaign launched to give those calling mobiles a fairer deal by reducing calling costs.
Carers UK have joined BT and mobile phone operator 3, along with the National Union of Students, the GMB Union, the Federation of Small Businesses and Moneysupermarket.com in the Terminate the Rate campaign to call for a significant cut in the cost of calling mobile phones.
Emily Holzhausen, Director of Policy and Public Affairs at Carers UK, who spoke at the launch of the campaign said: “Once people take on caring for a disabled or ill relative, unpaid, they often find that the costs of caring rocket, whilst their income plummets. 77 percent of carers have become financially worse off as a result of becoming a carer. Many are in debt and struggle to make ends meet. They often have to make many calls, keeping in touch with the person for whom they care making sure they are OK, arranging care and other help because they cannot leave the house. We are delighted to back this campaign and hope that Ofcom will make changes to its policies to help improve carers' lives.”
The campaign is calling for an end to high ‘Mobile Termination Rates’ (charges paid to connect calls to mobiles) 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. Last year UK mobile operators charged £750 million in MTRs just for allowing fixed-line customers to call mobiles and the campaign is calling for the rate to be brought down to around a penny or less, saving consumers and businesses hundreds of millions.
John Petter, Consumer Managing Director, at BT Retail said: 'Fixed-line phone users know that calling a mobile is too expensive. We've done what we can to bring down that cost, but with MTRs accounting for up to 80 percent of the price per minute of a call from a home phone line to a mobile, the only way to get better prices is to Terminate the unfair Rate.”
Kevin Russell, CEO of 3 UK said: “Our calculations show that the cost of terminating a call on a mobile network is less than a penny. The current regime allows all mobile operators to charge much more, at a cost of millions of pounds to UK consumers. If we Terminate the unfair Rate, everyone will save money. As charges come down, competition between operators will bring down prices for consumers. When this happens we will be able to provide flat rate, unlimited calling offers which include numbers on any UK network. This will give consumers real freedom.”
For more information visit www.terminatetherate.org