This discussion was originally started in the How can we improve Saynoto0870? (Part 1) thread. It's off-topic, so I've moved it to its own thread.

Dave
~~~

[quote author=NonGeographicalMan  link=1108310388/0#4 date=1108330763]
BT's response to the Ofcom NTS Options for the Future consultation is actually to abolish revenue sharing on 0845 and 0870 number ranges but to allow it to continue on 0844 and 0871.

The BT proposal although initially sounding hopeful is irrational and unfair as all 0870 scamsters would simply migrate to the equally unregulated but more expensive 0871 NGN access code whilst to simply abolish 0845 revenue sharing for ISPs would completely decimate certain entirely legitimate dial up 0845 ISPs who just happen to be deadly rivals of BT and its mainly 0844 pay as you go based dialup services.

The correct solution is to abolish all 084x and 087x revenue sharing and for all calls to these number ranges to simply be priced at the same rates as ordinary geographic phone calls.  080x revenue sharing should be allowed to continue however as there is a zero cost to the consumer for these calls and the call recipient has ever incentive to drive down his costs for receiving these calls to the lowest possible level.

As a consequence any voice based call centres wanting to continue to scam people (Easyjet and TopUpTv spring to mind for some reason) would then have to move to 09 ICSTIC regulation and declare their pricing up front and abolish any long call queues.

The gradually fast declining dialup ISP market should then relocate on to a new number prefix such as the unused 04 or 06 number range prefixes and there could be perhaps say 045x for those charging a fixed price as per 0845 and 044x for those whose charges are ISP dependent - as per 0844.  And there is actually no problem migrating people from 0845 and 0844 to 045x and 044x because believe me if people get an email saying your access will cease on date X they will then manage to download the cookie to change their dialup settings or even manage to go into Dial Up Networking and do it manually.  Anyhow the dialup ISP market will be almost completely dead within 3 years so all this will do is to help vastly accelerate the process.[/quote]

It's not just ISP's though.  I have an 0845 number as a service to my customers- they can call me any time at local rates, and it's my initial contact number. Those with free/cheap call packages who prefer my real number can have it; it's not a secret- I just like to give people the option.  It's no cost to me, and the "revenue share"- well, I've had the number a year, and it's not raised enough to trigger a payment as yet.

[quote author=ChickPea  link=1119519940/0#0 date=1119519939]It's not just ISP's though.  I have an 0845 number as a service to my customers- they can call me any time at local rates, and it's my initial contact number.[/quote]

Can I point you in the direction of these reference sources in respect of your highly misleading claims that your 0845 number is "local rate" rather than the premium non geographic call rate it in fact is.  For instance calling your 0845 number from a BT Payphone for 15 minutes costs £1.75 but calling an number starting 01 or 02 would cost 30p.

Check out the following sources as to why your claims are misleading:-


www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/213630/responses/leicester_cc.pdf

Check out Para 1.3

http://www.asa.org.uk/cap/news_events/news/2005/Hanging+on+the+telephone+on+and+on+and+on.htm

and


http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/Adjudication+Details.htm?Adjudication_id=39587

Can I respectfully point out that BT abolished a separate local call rate even for those customers who still use it to route their phone calls on 1st July 2004.

Since then the BT Option 1, 2 and 3 rates for geographic calls starting 01 and 02 have not had a local lower rate, whereas 0845 and 0870 have contined being charged at separate premium rates.

Perhaps reading what's in the forum before rushing to make a highly embarassing post might have been helpful.

[quote author=ChickPea  link=1119519940/0#0 date=1119519939]I have an 0845 number as a service to my customers- they can call me any time at local rates, and it's my initial contact number. Those with free/cheap call packages who prefer my real number can have it; it's not a secret- I just like to give people the option.  It's no cost to me, and the "revenue share"- well, I've had the number a year, and it's not raised enough to trigger a payment as yet.[/quote]
You appear to have been misled (misled yourself?) as to the justification for having an 0845 number.

On 1/7/04, BT 'migrated' almost all its residential customers onto BT Together Option 1 and changed some call prices.  Most importantly, BT removed the differentiation between 'local' and 'national' 01/02 calls so that BT Together Option 1 residential customers can now dial ANY UK 01/02 number for 3p/minute during the week or 5.5p for up to an hour evenings or weekends.

Hence, your justification for your 0845 number, "... service to my customers - they can call me any time at local rates ..." could now equally be said of your normal 01 or 02 number regardless of where in the UK the caller is.  In fact, those of us using call18866.co.uk could make the latter call for 2p regardless of the call length but would still have to pay our telco's per minute charge (BT's is 3p) to call your 0845 number.

Others are using similar arguments to justify the use of 0870 numbers ("... service to our customers - they can call us any time at national rates...") but such a statement is now always incorrect for BT Together Option 1 callers.

[quote author=ChickPea  link=1119519940/0#0 date=1119519939]It's not just ISP's though.  I have an 0845 number as a service to my customers- they can call me any time at local rates, and it's my initial contact number. Those with free/cheap call packages who prefer my real number can have it; it's not a secret- I just like to give people the option.  It's no cost to me, and the "revenue share"- well, I've had the number a year, and it's not raised enough to trigger a payment as yet.[/quote]

The only option that you are giving  them, is the ability to phone you at a higher price then they would if done, if they phoned your normal geographical no.This doesnt appear to be much of a customer service benefit, does it?

The other point that you might like to consider is that calls from mobiles to NGN tend to be dearer because they are not usually included in networks inclusive minutes.Where as they are normally included to 01/02 numbers.

[quote author=bill  link=1119519940/0#2 date=1119521904] but such a statement is now always incorrect for BT Together Option 1 callers.[/quote]

To clarify further a BT Together Option 1 customer is a standard BT customer (80% or more of them) who has not opted in to anything.  Despite its name BT forces you to have BT Option 1 when you subscribe to a residential phone line with them.

It is only Optional to pay an extra monthly subscription for the calling plans known as BT Options 2 or 3.

How Ofcom allows BT to still call it Option 1 still is quite beyond me.

[quote author=NonGeographicalMan  link=1119519940/0#1 date=1119521346]For instance calling your 0845 number from a BT Payphone for 15 minutes costs £1.75 but calling an number starting 01 or 02 would cost 30p.....[/quote]I agree with NonGeoraphicalMan.  It's not just the cost from a payphone, mobile operators charge significantly higher to call 084x/087x numbers (upto 30ppm) than to call a ordinary geographical number 01 & 02.

As mentioned by NonGeoMan, local rate hasn't existed in over a year.  Look at the info below for an example call from London to Scotland:-

Daytime Geographical: 3ppm*
Evening & Weekend Geographical: 5.5p* for up to an hour

Daytime 0845: 3.95ppm*
Evening Weekend 0845: 1ppm* (and not upto an hour like geographicals)

Key:
* The prices quoted are from BT's website and are assuming people are on the basic package and not a inclusive package as geographical calls would probably be free but not 084x/087x.  The geographical calls of 3ppm daytime are based on BT's prices to show you the maximum cost of the call but most (if not all other) call providers charge less than BT for geographical calls.  One company, Call18866.co.uk, charge only 2p per call for calls to geographical numbers.

And www.voipbuster.com lets you call all uk numbers starting 01 or 02 free of charge at any time but this does not apply to 0845 or 0870 numbers where it charges a higher price than BT's already exorbitantly high rate for making such calls.

The following quoted post has been removed. Dave

[quote author=DaveM  link=0 date=1119532807]Excuse me guys but why has this started in this thread ??

It has NOTHING to do with it and I'd appreciate it if the people posting them would start a new thread in the Geographical Chat forum (or Cheap Call Providers), cut and paste their entries across and delete the posts on this.

Chickpea seems to be the one who started it so if he'd like to start the new thread in the other forum and we'll go from there.

I'm not being bolshi, but I cant see why any of it ended up here.    :-/

Thanks,  DaveM[/quote]

I didn't *start* it, I replied to a comment about 0845 numbers (and learned some interesting facts, I have to say) and was immediately dogpiled.  I came into this forum to make a comment about site usability and was sidetracked by the 0845 issue.  Now that I understand that 0845 numbers are *also* the work of Satan, I have no further interest in the topic- except to agree about adding them to the campaign.

[quote author=DaveM  link=0 date=1119532807]Excuse me guys but why has this started in this thread ??

Chickpea seems to be the one who started it so if he'd like to start the new thread in the other forum and we'll go from there.
[/quote]

I think you have actually answered your own question Dave.

The discussion is here because Chickpea made his rather worrying post in this thread and then we who were already subscribed to this thread merely saw his post and replied.  So if the discussion was to be moved elsewhere it would be up to Chickpea to do so but I'm not sure that anyone who believes that 0845 calls are still charged at local rate would actually be capable of such a feat!

You also ignore the fact that moving the discussion to a new thread causes everyone interested and who has posted to be desubscribed from notification of thread updates.

It seems to me you are a bit of a zealot on the thread topicality thing Dave.  At the end of the day its all about 0870 and although it would vaguely help if the thread discussion was generally about the thread title its no big train smash to me if it sometimes diverges off on some other 084/7x tangent.  Also those still interested in the original thread title can still continue to post on the original topic too.

But perhaps you hadn't considered that starting a new thread causes those subscribed to the other one to no longer be updated with new posts?

[quote author=ChickPea  link=1119519940/0#7 date=1119533641]Now that I understand that 0845 numbers are *also* the work of Satan, I have no further interest in the topic- except to agree about adding them to the campaign.[/quote]

Chickpea,

It is certainly good to hear that you have now "seen the light" on 0845 numbers too, even if only as a result of our dogpiling in response to your original post.

It does seem to me to say a great deal about the brilliant success with which BT, Cable & Wireless and their call centre running friends have deliberately misled the public that someone like you had got the message about 0870 but not about 0845 calls.

So for clarity are you also aware of 0871 numbers being charged at 10p per minute at all times and 0844 charged at an unpredictable rate between 1p and 5p per minute at all times depending on the service called.  I assume you were previously aware of the high costs associated with calling numbers starting 07 and 09?

I also hope that you will now be letting all your customers have your geographic phone number as well as the 0845 number so that they can call you as cheaply as possible.  You may also be interested to visit www.call18866.co.uk, www.1899.com or www.voipbuster.com for the best deal on your 01 and 02 calls.  You can also bring 0870 call costs down to 5p per minute by routing them through www.dialaround.co.uk using an 0844 access number.

Don't worry about Dave and his excitement over the thread going off topic.  It seems that moderators only become moderators because of a tendency to become a little hot under the collar about such things.

[quote author=NonGeographicalMan  link=1119519940/0#9 date=1119534200]Don't worry about Dave and his excitement over the thread .....[/quote]

Correction, but it should be DaveM who gets all stroppy ( I know, having been the subject!!).
Dave is OK

[quote author=omy  link=1119519940/0#10 date=1119538767]Correction, but it should be DaveM who gets all stroppy ( I know, having been the subject!!).
Dave is OK[/quote]

I should have noticed.

I wish one of them would adopt an alias name for the forum to avoid us becoming confused.

DaveM does have a point though.  We went off topic a bit discussing the cost of 0845/0870, etc and this thread is for how to improve SayNoTo0870!

FAO a Mod,

is it possible to copy this topic to geographical chat and delete the posts that aren't relevant?  That way, this topic still remains where it is but the lasts few posts can be deleted.  The newly copied topic in geographical chat section could have the posts concerning how to improve SayNoTo0870 deleted.

I'm not sure if this is possible but just a thought!?

Kev.

[quote author=bbb_uk  link=1119519940/0#12 date=1119549831]is it possible to copy this topic to geographical chat and delete the posts that aren't relevant?  That way, this topic still remains where it is but the lasts few posts can be deleted.  The newly copied topic in geographical chat section could have the posts concerning how to improve SayNoTo0870 deleted.
[/quote]
But if they do this then none of us who have posted on this matter in this thread will be subscribed to the new thread.  Unless we make another post in that new thread in order to become subscribed to it.

Returning to the original point of this thread though it seems that there is still much work to do on the number checking to clear the backlog.

There are now nearly 3,000 numbers in the Unverified List compared to around 4,000 verified numbers.

Perhaps rather than berating us for going off topic DaveM, Dave or Daniel would like to suggest what plans the forum management have for addressing that particular issue?  Unless of course they know something that we don't know about the forthcoming revised Ofcom 084/7x proposals. ??? ;)

[quote author=bbb_uk  link=1119519940/0#5 date=1119522931]Daytime Geographical: 3ppm*
Evening & Weekend Geographical: 5.5p* for up to an hour

Daytime 0845: 3.95ppm*
Evening Weekend 0845: 1ppm* (and not upto an hour like geographicals)[/quote]
Daytime (06:00 to 18:00, Mon-Fri) calls to 0845 numbers on BT Together Option 1 cost the same as local calls; 3p/min. I think the 3.95p/min is the non-discounted rate. See my stickied threads at the top of the Chat section for more info on what non-discounted and discounted means.

[quote author=bbb_uk  link=1119519940/0#12 date=1119549831]is it possible to copy this topic to geographical chat and delete the posts that aren't relevant?  That way, this topic still remains where it is but the lasts few posts can be deleted.  The newly copied topic in geographical chat section could have the posts concerning how to improve SayNoTo0870 deleted.[/quote]
No. Mods can only move entire threads and remove individual posts. I will send Daniel a message, see if he can do it.

[quote author=NonGeographicalMan  link=1119519940/0#13 date=1119550908]But if they do this then none of us who have posted on this matter in this thread will be subscribed to the new thread.  Unless we make another post in that new thread in order to become subscribed to it.[/quote]
Click Notify of replies at the top or bottom of the screen in any thread and you will be subscribed, you don't have to post.