By Simon Woodhead
Effective July 1st, in-line with Vodafone’s delayed implementation date, UK mobile networks Three and EE will be implementing similar origin-based charging. We expect O2 to attend too but be fashionably late
Whilst in their second iteration Vodafone have increased the original rates by a factor of 9, we’re maintaining our position of not passing these directly on to customers if we can avoid doing so. However, with surcharges potentially now exceeding 500x the wholesale cost of a normal mobile call, customers need to be prepared for us to reject anything more than a trivial volume of non-UK originated calls. Given EE’s pricing looks remarkably similar to Vodafones initial attempt, we would not be surprised to see rates increase again overall.
As previously, we also stand ready to pass on an origination charge if the market moves that way, but would prefer not to given the complexity it will add for our customers. It is likely however that rates will need to increase to reflect the mix if we do not pass a specific surcharge on.
