Ofcom today announced a consultation on the mobile call termination wholesale market. This wholesale market results in those (usually large) fees mobile operators tend to charge in the UK when you call ‘off-net’ (eg, when an Orange customer calls an O2 customer).

This is a highly-charged consumer issue with a bit of regulatory history that has included temporary policymaking and a previously ordered cut in fees. Ofcom do not want to appear to be an interventionist regulator, but the market structure and incentives appear to consistently result in very high off-net call charges to consumers. According to some accounts I have read, the current scheme unfairly costs the average UK phone user 10 quid a month.

The consultation document is here. I found the research in Annex 6 compelling. Many if not most consumers don’t know when they are calling off net. Accordingly, not only are these termination fees excessive, they are often imposed when consumers are unaware.

Comments responsive to the consultation are due no later than May 25 2006.