A group of UK operators have made appeals to the country’s Competition Appeal Tribunal, following a decision by telecoms watchdog Ofcom to reduce mobile termination rates in the period to 2015. Submissions were made by Everything Everywhere (EE), 3 UK and Vodafone UK – although while established players EE and Vodafone have a fair degree of accord, 3’s stance is somewhat different. According to a Financial Times report, O2 UK is planning to support the complaints from EE and Vodafone. It also noted that “lawyers said they believed the operators had a limited chance of overturning Ofcom’s decision.” The regulator announced its plans in March 2011, stating that termination rates would fall by 80 percent over four years.

Documents published by the Tribunal indicate that EE and Vodafone believe that the regulator was wrong in its assessment of the ‘long run incremental cost’ (LRIC) of providing mobile call termination, arguing that it should have adopted a “LRIC+” model. EE also said that it believes the watchdog’s future data forecasts are flawed. Alternatively, 3 argues that “Ofcom set rates too high for all four years of the charge control imposed by the decision because Ofcom has relied on costs associated with certain items of radio access network equipment that are wrongly stated.” Fixed-line incumbent operator BT has also made a submission, which states that “Ofcom erred in failing to make a one-off adjustment to the rate at the start of the control to current ‘LRIC Plus’ levels, to strip out the unjustified windfall profits made by the mobile network operators in respect of prices which exceed even LRIC Plus rates .”