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In January 2026 we reported that the UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, had opened an investigation into Meta’s WhatsApp Business messaging service after provisionally finding that the information they supplied – as part of a review into the wholesale market for business bulk SMS messages – “may not have been complete and accurate“. Today Meta was fined £450k for this rule breach.
Ofcom’s original review examined the wholesale prices of automated text (SMS) messages that organisations send to people (A2P – application-to-person). Such messages are often sent, for example, by the NHS when issuing medical appointment reminders, as well as parcel delivery notifications or one-time passcodes etc.
Back in October 2025 the regulator found that wholesale prices for the termination of these messages (A2P SMS termination rates) had increased significantly in recent years, jumping as much as 70% since 2021. Ofcom also identified that mobile operators had Significant Market Power (SMP) in this area, including the “ability and incentive to increase their termination prices to an excessively high level“.