I discovered this site last week - fantastic! I'll always check here first before phoning any non-geographical numbers.

I immediately set about finding the "real" number for rooms in student accommodation at the University of Leicester, by finding which numbers were allocated to NTL from the Ofcom website, as suggested in one of the forums.

NTL were allocated 18 different blocks of numbers, and a quick Google showed that most of these were used by 1000s of companies, so were clearly not correct. So in a few minutes, success! So numbers in the form 0870 015 xxxx become 0116 005 xxxx

I tried calling one such number from my office in the university, and it worked as long as I included the national code. (Note that the main Uni phone system is completely separate from the accommodation system - operated by BT I presume).

My rejoicing was short-lived, however. Calling from a mobile gave "number not recognised", as did a standard BT landline.

Local numbers starting 0 or 1 are for "national dialling only" according to Ofcom. As such, they are seemingly blocked by service providers, but somehow the internal exchange system we have at the university seems to bypass that and allow it to be dialled. There's no reason why the number shouldn't be available as long as you dial the national code before it, but it seems it isn't.

I called the BT operator and asked to be put through to one of those numbers. At first she said I must have got it wrong, but when I insisted I had called it from work, she checked and said it was a valid number, commenting, "I haven't seen one like that before." She said it might be that NTL's network was down, and claimed they don't check these things and are impossible to contact. She was quite nice about it, but didn't have a clue really.

If this site becomes popular, how long until companies request "national dialling only" numbers that most people can't access, forcing us to use the rip-off ones? In that case, aren't we sunk?

Sorry this is a long post. If anyone has any idea how to unblock these numbers, I'd be pleased to hear about it. Also, if you want to try it (perhaps someone outside Leicester could try) you should be able to reach NTL customer services on 0116 005 5555.


Jonathan

Having followed this link, I find that you should be able to dial any UK number from a BT landline.  

It says that "Only BT and Kingston Communications (Hull), however, are obliged to ensure that their customers can dial all numbers within the UK", so  I would suggest you contact BT to find out why they are not allowing access to NTL 0116 015 numbers.

I just spoke to Ofcom (020 7981 3040) and briefly explained problems people have dialling 0116 005 xxxx and they said they know of no reason why BT should block access to this numbering range.  They advised ringing BT on 0800 671502 and asking them to investigate why this is happening.

The guy at Ofcom wanted the complete number to investigate this, but obviously you can supply this when calling BT.

Good luck.

I do apologise, I've only just noticed that there were some more replies to this thread!

A number that should definitely work is 0116 005 5555. That's NTL customer services (it rings from my office phone).

You can also try 0116 005 2579, which belonged to a friend who left some weeks ago (you should get an answerphone with a message from the room's previous occupant).

I don't know the exact number range, and I don't think anyone would give it to me! As far as I know, all 10000 numbers are potentially available to the University. I can only ever recall seeing internal numbers beginning 2, 5 or 6, though. (i.e. 0116 005 2xxx, etc.)

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That's where I found the 0116 005 code in the first place! They say these numbers are only for instances where the end user will not need to dial them.

Maybe they are using these numbers to avoid wasting numbers that can be dialled without the code that they think may be needed in the future.

But my suspicion is that they are deliberately using these numbers so that the geographical number can't be used, forcing people to dial 0870. If this trend spreads to other companies or organisations who currently use non-geographical numbers, this site could eventually become useless.

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The poster above suggests that BT and Kingston are obliged to allow customers to call all numbers in the UK, though. So should they allow people to access these geographical numbers?

As for getting my own NGN, the companies offering these numbers usually phone up to check that the number is correct and belongs to the person ordering the number. If they can't dial the geographical number, it won't be possible to set it up.
Anyway, I might occasionally call a number of people who have numbers on this system, and I can't set up 0845 numbers for all of them! I want to use a 0116 number to make use of the 5.5p for an hour tariff that BT force me to use!

Perhaps complaining to BT about blocking the numbers is missing the point, as they are one of the most expensive for geographic calls. Why should the cheaper companies block them? Forcing use of 0870 pushes you back to BT, who are generally the cheapest for non-geographic calls.

So do all companies other than NTL and Orange block? What about the various companies that allow you to make cheap calls on 084 numbers? You can call UK landlines (and some international destinations) for about 1p a minute. Then you are technically going through a non-geographic number as required.

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The latter point is a problem. I never know who I might want to call on this system. This might be an option if there was one number I called regularly. But at best, to change the destination of an 0845 number, you have to contact the company, and they do it within the hour. Hardly convenient just for making a call! Personal numbering uses 07 numbers and costs a fortune to call.

But anyway, 0845 is still not good enough! I pay BT for "Option 1" which means I can talk for an hour in the evening or at weekends for 5.5p. On 0845 I get 5.5 minutes for 5.5p!


Note to anyone in Leicester reading this thread: the problem is with phones in the University-managed Halls and self-catering residences where they have NTL phones. In Opal Court they have a different system, and the geographical number works fine from all phones, including BT lines. The number is 0116 214 xxxx. (It is currently in the "unverified" list as DaveM wants to test a number before adding it to the main list!)