Ofcom Sets Out Changes to UK Wholesale Landline and Mobile Call Markets

The UK telecoms and internet content regulator, Ofcom, has today revealed its final decisions on how they regulate the wholesale markets that enable landline and mobile calls (inc. calls to 070 numbers) – covering the period from 1st April 2026 to 31st March 2031, as well as removing an access‑related obligation that has applied to BT.

Overall the regulator’s 2026 Review of Call Termination Markets recognises that “consumers and businesses now have more choices on how they can make calls and so usage of services is changing” (i.e. services like WhatsApp and Microsoft Teams now result in more calls than traditional mobile and landline services). But they also found that this “doesn’t remove the need” to regulate wholesale call termination services.

The result is that Ofcom have decided to continue to regulate call termination services until 2031. “Without regulation, call termination providers could exploit their significant market power, for example, by charging excessive termination rates to other providers and distorting competition in mobile and landline markets,” warned the regulator. But they have streamlined their regulatory processes and made some rules easier to implement, which they say should “reduce” the “regulatory burden and associated costs“.

In addition, the regulator has decided to remove their End-to-End Connectivity Condition from BT, which requires the operator to purchase call termination from other providers when reasonably requested, and to do so on fair and reasonable terms.

“Our view is that market developments – such as the presence of other providers which offer transit services, the migration of landline phones to digital technology, and the widespread availability and use of ‘hosting services’ – have reduced the risk that providers cannot interconnect their networks since we first imposed this condition,” ruled Ofcom.

Summary of Ofcom’s Decisions

➤ To continue to set caps on the charges for terminating calls to landlines and mobile phones in the UK.

Without these caps, providers would have the ability and incentive to charge excessively high rates for termination. This is because an originating provider has no other choice than to buy the termination service from the terminating provider.

➤ To adjust the caps for mobile and fixed call termination for annual inflation from 1 June 2026 until the end of the review period.

While we initially proposed to keep these caps at their 2025/26 levels until 31 March 2031, we have decided to adjust them to allow for inflation from 1 June 2026 (0.0377 pence per minute for fixed and 0.504 pence per minute for mobile) and allow for further annual inflation adjustments from 1 April 2027.

➤ To give UK providers additional pricing flexibility when terminating international calls.

This includes the flexibility to increase their termination rates for calls from non-UK numbers when the caller is roaming in the UK, if the relevant international provider’s reciprocal termination rate is higher than the UK domestic rate.

➤ To continue to impose network access conditions for all providers offering fixed call termination and mobile call termination relating to call termination and associated facilities, such as interconnection.

➤ To continue to impose additional remedies on BT relating to its provision of fixed call termination and associated facilities, but remove conditions relating to legacy technology and certain transparency requirements as to quality of service.

These additional remedies include a requirement not to unduly discriminate, transparency requirements and financial reporting requirements. They remain justified in light of BT’s position in the market as the largest provider of fixed call termination and an important interconnection partner for other fixed providers, which gives rise to a greater risk of harm to competition through discriminatory behaviour. We are removing redundant conditions relating to legacy call termination services that BT has withdrawn. We have also decided to reduce the number of key performance indicators (KPIs) BT is required to publish to provide transparency about its interconnection quality of service.

➤ To continue to set a cap on termination rates for calls to 070 numbers (also known as personal numbers) equivalent to the cap for mobile termination rates.

Without the cap, providers would have the ability and incentive to charge excessively high rates for termination of calls to 070 numbers, with potential adverse consequences on end-users (for example, fraud and bill shock).

➤ To revoke the End-to-End Connectivity Condition with effect from 1 April 2026.

We have decided to revoke the access-related condition requiring BT to purchase termination from other providers on reasonable request and on reasonable terms and conditions, including charges. We plan to monitor the impact of this revocation on interconnection arrangements as part of our competition supervision programme.

In short, we’ll have to wait until 2031 to see if the regulator plan to make any truly significant changes to the market, which is much like their recent review of wholesale broadband and business connectivity services (here). Ofcom recognises that today’s market is one that is still in a transition phase and much may yet change by 2031.