Telcos react to Ofcom mobile ruling

Ofcom's ruling ordering mobile operators to reduce call termination charges has received a mixed response from the telecoms industry.

The regulator has told T-Mobile, Vodafone, O2 and Orange to reduce the cost of connections from a landline or other mobile network by September 2004 by up to 30 per cent.

While BT has indicated that the ruling will encourage consumer usage, mobile operators are less happy.

"Ofcom has rightly recognised that the termination charges levied by mobile operators have been too high and need to be controlled by regulatory intervention," said a BT spokesman.

But Orange, for one, denied that such detailed regulation was required.

"Orange does not agree with the conclusion of Ofcom's review that detailed regulation of mobile termination rates is necessary," a spokeswoman told vnunet.com.

"Ofcom must recognise that the rest of the mobile market is highly competitive, and that there is no need or justification for further regulatory intervention in this market."

An O2 spokesman told vnunet.com: "[A 30 per cent discount] is pretty hard in anyone's language. We just hope it is passed on to customers."

Pierre Danon, chief executive at BT Retail, promised that his customers will benefit from Ofcom's ruling.

"I personally guarantee that we will be passing all of the savings on to our fixed line customers," he said in a statement.

Vodafone and T-Mobile were more reserved with their responses. Vodafone maintained that the decision was "in line with its expectations", while a T-Mobile spokesman described the firm as "satisfied with the consultation approach that has been adopted in dealing with this issue".