Telecoms Update January 2014

Welcome to the January 2014 edition of Telecoms Update, Field Fisher Waterhouse's publication which is targeted at advisers in the telecoms/ISP industries.

We start this issue by covering OFCOM's provisional decision to reduce the donor conveyance charge (DCC) element of mobile number porting charges by over sixty per cent (from its current level of 0.1ppm to 0.039 ppm). In addition, OFCOM intends to disallow any HLR look-up costs and BT transit costs as part of the DCC. If this proposal goes ahead, it will mean that operators who are gaining market share through churn from their competitors will face lower costs to acquire customers who wish to port their mobile number as part of the switch. One potential consequence of this move is that certain operators who have broadly symmetrical churn rates may decide not to charge each other the DCC charge on the basis that the costs of setting up and running the associated systems outweigh any benefit to either operator.