John Petter, BT's MD of Consumer Affairs, said:

"Having campaigned for two years to get Ofcom to lower mobile termination rates, I am delighted to pass on the news that calls to mobile phones from a BT landline are to cost a great deal less. We are passing on Ofcom’s reduction and what’s more we’ll soon be telling customers how they can stop worrying about call charges from landlines to mobiles with a new, inclusive consumer calling package. Watch this space.

In the mean time, we are naming and shaming Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media who will be charging so much more than BT for calling mobiles. And we call upon them to give what over 160,000 members of the British public, 65 public sector organisations, unions and consumer groups and 262 MPs asked for in the Terminate the Rate Campaign: lower charges for landline calls to mobiles."

TalkTalk Statement

The reason for BT’s underwhelming change to its prices is because Ofcom has demanded they be cut. Yet we reduced our prices back in October last year, even before we knew what level Ofcom would set. And, as our sums demonstrate, we’ve gone much further too.

So while it’s flattering to us that BT has finally decided to start following our lead in cutting the cost of mobile calls, the reality is it’s still got a long way to go.

On Monday BT was crowing that it’d cut ‘daytime’ rates to 11.3p from 13p per minute. The best value mobile calls package we offer, our 500 Mobile Minutes Boost, costs just £5 a month for 500 minutes and our 100 Mobile Minutes Boost costs £3 a month. We’ve done the sums and the numbers are pretty conclusive.

A customer spending 100 minutes a month on the phone to mobiles will save £175 over the course of a year with our 100 Mobile Minutes Boost. A heavier user, using all of their 500 mobile minutes, would save an enormous £993 a year. Even someone using just 200 of their 500 monthly mobile minutes would save £361 over the course of a year compared to BT.

That’s a saving not to be sniffed at – and gives you some idea of how much BT is over-egging how good value its new call rates to mobile phones are.