Sounds like OfcoN are talking total BS to me.  They have yet to show interest in consumers!

Anyhow that to one side, I have no intention of paying to receive calls.  I don't believe it will save money for us consumers and comparing how much it costs us for calls compared to States is unrealistic because most things in the states is cheaper anyhow.

OK, Ofcom's actual news release is here.  The only mention of termination charges is Quote:
.  
Links to the consultation document are there, for formal responses, but they've also got a blog and informal "interactive" page for comments too.  

I actually don't think this would be such a bad idea - if it's implemented properly. You would need to be able to cancel/reject a call without inuring cost, or even block numbers from calling you.

At the moment there's no call cost clarity over what it costs to call non fixed lines (ie mobiles, non-geo, etc) - with this plan, then calling anyone on a fixed line or mobile would cost the same (be it per call/per minute/fixed plan, etc).

This would further highlight the stupid exemptions from current calling plans: 084/087/etc, which we all loathe so much - and would/should hopefully highlight to the general public that numbers beginning 08 cost (more) to call.

Martin.

Quote:


In the US, you purchase a bundle of "minutes", whether pre- or post-paid. The more you pay up front, the more minutes you get and the lower the effective price per call ie it's not a linear relationship. What this really implies is a set amount of "airtime". In other words, your included minutes includes all the time you are transmitting and / or receiving on your phone - whether that call was made by you, or received by you. Although it would appear to be a more expensive system, it does seem to work reasonably well (can ANY mobile call cost be called reasonable...... ). Remember, calls to mobile numbers in the US cost exactly the same as a call to a landline. One huge advantage with that is that your landline phone bill is the same whether you call, say, 100 landline numbers or 100 mobile numbers. Certainly removes the often quoted moan from doctors that they '....have to pay so much to call patients on their mobiles'. Now if that were also introduced in the UK, it would be a revolution! And, after all, it really is for the convenience of the called party in having the mobile, and not the caller - so why should he or she pay?

In theory, of course, you could have a situation where you used all your airtime receiving calls. Unlikely, though.

I don't think it is only the US that uses this system. Canada, obviously and also Hong Kong and possibly China?

The NCC makes a good argument to show that there is no competitive market governing termination rates at present. If the cost fell on the renter of the mobile then this would emerge. It also rightly points out that there is little relationship between costs and charges.

It does however not require too much imagination to conclude that the change being discussed would alter the profile of mobile use in the UK significantly. This has developed to where it is now with no relationship between costs and charges. Free handsets cause the poorest to use the more expensive means of communication. Texting has become a major phenomenon amongst the youth of the country because it is subsidised unwittingly by calls from anxious parents.

Whatever the merits of any change towards a more direct relationship between costs and charges, the market is so far away from this that Ofcom is unlikely to be ready suffer the criticism it would face in compelling such a dramatic change. By its very constitution, Ofcom is compelled to believe that competitive markets exist and that consumer choice is both the right primary means of control and one that it has effectively enabled.

If someone would like to propose a date on which a fundamental change to the whole basis of every mobile contract (including PAYG) could occur, so that every user (over 100% of the population according to statistics) could return their phone and start again, then this radical proposal could perhaps be taken seriously. My own prediction would be that this date would have to follow that on which telecomms in the UK is re-nationalised, so that its governing body (the replacement for Ofcom) was in a position to take the firm radical action often called for in this forum.

Can we confirm that the very straightforward question in the poll invites us to simply express a preference as if in a hypothetical ideal world.

Nobody has yet offered any serious proposal for how such a dramatic change to the current UK market could be brought about and how the issue of unsolicited calls could be dealt with. If any such proposal were offered up to the vote, the results would be likely to be very different. Unless something very clever, that addressed all of the relevant issues, were dreamed up, my "yes" would undoubtedly become a "no".

We are at a very early stage, however the present voting suggests that, on balance, members prefer callers to pay. I find this surprising, given that the general theme of this website is that those who utilise additional technology on the telephone network should bear the cost of doing so themselves, rather than imposing it on others.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Sep 6^th, 2008 at 10:23pm:
Yes.  I didn't want to over complicate anything.

jgxenite wrote on Sep 7^th, 2008 at 7:30am:
Same here.  Yes, it may work in the US but they generally have lower prices for most things and don't have hidden premium rate numbers like we do.

Even if it was adopted I don't believe it would work same as it does in the US with their type of call rates, all that would happen is that calling a mobile may get slightly reduced.

After all we live in Ripp Of Britain (ROB)!