Following the launch by BT, 3 and moneysupermarket.com of the 'Terminate the Rate' campaign, which aims to bring down arbitrary mobile termination rates (MTRs), new moneysupermarket.com research reveals that MTRs cost consumers almost 1 billion a year (see footnote), yet 9 in 10 have never heard of them, even though they can account for as much as 80% of the cost per minute of a call from a home phone line to a mobile, or from a mobile to another mobile on a different network.
When respondents were informed that MTRs are charged at 4.7p or more for each minute, despite the actual costs being less than a penny, 9 out of 10 people thought they represented an unfair hidden charge.
moneysupermarket.com commissioned Opinium Research to carry out the survey, while polled 1,954 British adults online from Friday 22 May to Tuesday 26 May 2009. Results have been weighted to be nationally representative
The Terminate the Rate campaign is calling on Ofcom to lower MTRs to a rate that reflects actual costs. If successful, it could result in huge saving for consumers.
Millions of people do not know these charges even exist because mobile networks have managed to hide MTRs from the public for too long, says James Parker, Mobile Manager at moneysupermarket.com. These charges do not show up on your monthly bill, but these hidden charges are still passed on to anyone who makes a call to a mobile. By reducing MTRs, providers can offer even greater value to customers.
By signing up to this campaign, we can help reduce MTRs, which in turn will reduce the cost of calls and increase the value offered by providers. If people are sick of paying higher charges for calling a mobile I urge them to sign up to the Terminate the Rate campaign to get these unfair charges reduced.
MTRs currently account for 4.7 pence or more of every minute of a call to a mobile.  This is more than 10-times the termination rate charged to call a fixed-line phone. The aim of the campaign is to bring the MTR cost down to around a penny or less.

Footnote
moneysupermarket.coms calculations explained:
According to research from Ofcom, people make, on average, 115.6 minutes of outbound mobile phone calls each month. According to Ofcom figures, 27% of outbound mobile phone calls per month are off-net (i.e., to a mobile on another network), and so incur a MTR. 27% of 115.6 minutes equates to 31.2 minutes of calls being subjected to an MTR charge. This means on average, each month, a mobile phone user incurs 1.47 in MTRs. Over a year this equates to 17.60.
If the MTR cost were to come down to less than a penny, each mobile user would pay out 0.29 a month on MTRs (0.9p x 31.2 mins of calls), equating to 3.48 a year per person (0.29 x 12). 17.60 minus 3.48 is an average personal saving of 14.12 each a year.
According to the Office of National Statistics, ONS there are 48,315,000 adults in the UK, of which, according to Ofcom, 86% have a mobile phone, equating to 41,550,900 adults. If all made an annual saving of, on average, 14.12, the UK would save 586,698,708.
According to OfcomMSA figures, there are 33.7 million fixed lines paying an average 1.24 in MTRs per month (26.4 minutes at 4.7p) equating to 501,779,520. If MTRs were reduced to less than a penny, this would equate to 96,085,440, a saving of 405,694,080. Added to the 586,698,708 this equates to  a total saving of 992,392,788.