It’s difficult for me to defend / harass Ofcom when I haven’t fully read the underlying document, but when did that stop me?

Anyway, this editorial from mobileshop.com is pretty typical of what I have seen in terms of misdirected coverage of Ofcom’s mobile sector assessment.  The typical line:  Ofcom want to charge YOU for receiving unwanted calls on your mobile.  (It has this vibe of local councils and bins, doesn’t it?)

I thought David Stewart did a good job debunking this notion on the Ofcom blog. (which, BTW is a good reason for a regulatory organisation to have a blog).

Anyway, some further thoughts:

*  Last time I saw the statistics, minutes of use in countries with bill-and-keep or similar termination arrangements (ie, the USA) where much higher.  This means that mobile providers will make money from increased minutes of use, not inflated termination fees.  Someone should ask the large mobile firms: Can 40 million Elvis fans be wrong? (I can say that now, my dad just moved to Memphis).

Which people from the USA did the writer from mobileshop.com talk to?

*  I’m from the USA and have a mobile there (and here in the UK).  There:  much cheaper and I use it more.  Do I pay to receive calls there?  Absolutely.  I also pay to place calls there.  I just pay to use the phone period.  At the end of the month, given all the on and off network calls I have made, which is the better system?  The USA.  It’s rational, it’s cheaper, it’s more transparent.

*  I think the whole idea is to move to a system where things like minutes are meaningless.  When termination charges are rational or non-existent I think the trend then becomes a move towards unlimited calling plans where things like minutes and geography are meaningless.  Under that system you are technically paying to place and receive calls, so yes, something about what Ofcom and the EU are doing may result in people paying to receive calls.  But currently people are paying vastly inflated amounts to make calls to other mobile networks, so they think they are fighting a system that will make suckers out of them, but really they are already being suckered.  Regardez — a typical tariff:

*  I have find it hard to fathom that there are people on the calling plan above who think it is rational.  In the tariff above, you are charged more than double to place a call to someone who is on another mobile network.  And do you typically know what networks other people are on?  I don’t.

*  I actually think some people oppose this because they believe it is the natural order of things to receive free calls — even if placing calls is outrageously expensive.  These people need to think about it like email.  You pay one fee each month to an ISP, and you use email.  Are you paying to send email?  Yes.  Are you paying to receive email?  Yes.  Would you rather be on a system that says all received emails are free, but to send an email to another service (eg, gmail to yahoo) is 40p a message.  I doubt it.  People just need to translate that thinking to mobile phones.

*  Maybe the Ofcom document is not crystal clear on these points.  I’ll read it fully in due course.  Ofcom rightly in this case is doing something to remedy a typical rip-off Britain story and seemingly it is being spun the other way.