When you call a friend on a different mobile network, or call their mobile from your landline, their network will charge your operator a fee for carrying the call.

This is called a Mobile Termination Rate (or MTR) and is currently charged at around 4p or more for every minute of the call. The billions of minutes for which this fee is charged adds up to billions of pounds for UK consumers every year.

We think MTRs are excessive and distort competition and we want the industry regulator Ofcom to lower the rate to reflect actual costs. Ofcom is now proposing to do this, but wants to bring in the changes gradually over the next four years. We want to make sure this happens as soon as possible and make sure that Ofcom’s proposal to bring down charges to reflect the real costs becomes a reality.