This site may help you understand the 070 numbers......

pickaweb.co.uk/070-numbers.htm

One of the things which reminded me about 070 numbers was an e-mail I received from Trufree today and I see someone has already cited them.  As they are a large organisation, last year they merged with Dietary Specials and Schar, it hardly seems legal that they are using this number.  I have alerted people to this on the gluten free message board too.

sherbert wrote on Sep 18^th, 2007 at 4:05pm:


Interesting how the icons used for the number ranges are the same as those at www.dmclub.co.uk

Do you suppose the two organisations are by any chance in some way related.

NGMsGhost wrote on Sep 19^th, 2007 at 6:22pm:

The first is reselling the second, and not concealing the fact, as a click on the page would show

NGMsGhost wrote on Sep 19^th, 2007 at 6:40pm:


It's mostly history, rather than calculated rip-off, that has been overlooked for much too long now. When 070 numbers first launched, they were about the same 50 pence a minute as mobile calls, but they've been stuck in a time warp ever since.

In fact, I'm told there were mobile contracts available that still included them even as recently as under 3 years ago, though this was unknown to the network in question and an oversight carried through from earlier. I've heard of 50p though, rather than 3 times that as suggested, but I'm not doing any tests, and quite a few of them are actually barred anyway.

There isn't supposed to be revenue sharing, but anyone claiming that for Patientline would probably find themself confined.
__

As for the complete veer off-topic ...

Sorry, but complaining about United Mobile is over the top, and doesn't really belong on this forum. For nearly 3 years they've had free incoming roaming in plenty of countries, and much lower outgoing charges, and you've presumably taken plenty of advantage.

It's hardly their fault what the UK networks charge in proportion to the actual wholesale rates. It does come from some inclusive minutes. There are quite a few other UK mobile prefixes that the same questions apply to, but getting info from customer services is certainly difficult, and one or two aspects of the large companies' behaviour look unattractive.

But, NGM, as you'll know more about the tariffs available than the perhaps less phone-savvy people you'll give your number to, surely it would be quite sociable for you to tell those friends that it won't come from their inclusive minutes, or even set up for yourself the kind of call diversion you would presumably have had for the Liechtenstein number. As you could call home for pennies a minute, it won't be a hardship to incur that for incoming call diversions as well.

As for the suggestion that it's a disgrace that Jersey isn't a separate country for telecoms purposes ....... the best moment has gone, but perhaps +444 Guernsey, +445 Jersey, +446 Isle of Man could have been done quite easily when the rest of us had the leading 1s added or changed to 2something, conveniently even including the then existing landline allocations and allowing plenty of expansion for mobiles

If Jersey were totally split off now with a totally new country code as you seem to suggest, their landlines  would be out of range of much of the world for a while, hundreds of thousands of these SIMs might be redundant, and the best mobile rates might quite possibly soon have a run on them like other small countries - have you not noticed what has been happening to termination fees for Liechtenstein recently? AND, then they would certainly never come out of UK's inclusive minutes, whereas at the moment there is scope.

If you won't invest a fraction of your time explaining the product's benefits to people who have little idea what this bit was about, and telling people how to use it or call to it cheaply, instead of moaning off-target in this instance at Ofcom rather than the main UK mobile networks, then please leave it for the people who do want to use it.

The key point is that we pay some very high salaries indeed to people at Ofcom to keep on top of the UK numbering systems and not to release price controls where there are anti-competitive forces in the marketplace and they have completely failed us on this matter.

Its clear those most consumers have not a clue about many obscure codes in the UK numbering system and are ripped off as a result.  This is the fault of Ofcom which controls the numbering system and has a duty to educate the public about it.  Again it is also Ofcom's fault that many PAYG mobile phone operators do not have to provide call itemisation to customers, even on line, where there would be no significant running costs.  Not making this information available allows the public to be ripped off on expensive calls they do not even know are costing them a fortune.

Ofcom has not even publicised the launch of the 03 number range as a result of which most companies are incorrectly publicising the call cost and/or are still failing to interconnect to it.

As to United Mobile my complain is that their marketing claims they are now offering UK 079 mobile numbers when they are not and are offering Jersey mobile numbers that attract a higher call charge in a variety of situations than a UK mobile.   Jersey is not part of the UK on almost any normal definition.  It does share an army and a monarch with the UK however (but then so does Liechtenstein with Switzerland and Monaco with France).

andy9 wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2007 at 9:29am:

I haven't posted any lies.

Their marketing material clearly states they are providing a UK mobile number when they are not.  They are providing a Jersey mobile number that merely happens to share the same +44 country code as UK mobiles but is not charged the same way in many circumstances.

I would anticipate call prices to these numbers will go the same way as Liechtenstein mobiles shortly as the call code can be differentiated and charged differently by UK operators. This will happen once they realise how much extra the calls are costing them.  Not least with 18185.