Hi my girlfriend has moved into halls this month and has one of these stupid 0870 numbers so its charge me about 12p a min to call her, its cheaper for me to call her mobile!!!Could anyone track down the geographical number of her halls?
It starts: 0870 1705 XXX
Newcastle area code is: 0191

I have done a search on google and nothing has come up, im unsure of the phone provider possibly NTL?

Any help would be much appreciated!

A check shows that this prefix is allocated to Your Communications Ltd.

Can you give us any more information about the system? Who operates it. A weblink about it would be useful.

I presume that when she calls from the number, it gives a Withheld number. If so, get her to dial her mobile and put 1470 in front of the mob number. On a normal line this will release the CLI (the number you get on caller display/1471) when you prefix with 1470 when its set to be perminantly withheld. I don't expect it to work, but worth a try.  :-/

I'm just looking into this a bit more now. Newcastle University doesn't appear on YC's list of case studies. However, UCE's does, and it turns out they use VoIP (Voice Over IP). VoIP is a way of delivering phone calls via the internet rather than the normal phone network.

If Newcastle uses VoIP, I doubt we'll find a geographical number because there won't be one.

The prefix 0870 170 was allocated in May 2004, so I think that it's a fair bet that it will be VoIP.

Thanks for the feedback Dave, my mistakethe halls she is staying in don't actually belong to Newcastle and Northumbria university, they are a private housing company that the university uses to house students, the are called "domain", they have just been built this year and apparantly have more student accomodation all over the country. http://www.domain.moorfield.com/main.html  the name of the accomodaton is "Quay Point"

Also reading through their manual (http://www.domain.moorfield.com/pdf/handbooks/Quay%20Point.pdf) they have a landline number which is: 0191 233 1344

I will try and get her to ring out like you said later too.

www.myfoneFRED.com (this is the calling card company students buy the phone cards to ring out on) she said this was on the back of the phone : www.geemarc.com might be the phone make im not sure but this web address is in the telepone manual. tel: 01707 384 438

would it still be VoIP if they offer a normal 56k dial up as well as broadband connection there too? - and they have a  landline contact number to the management office located on site too?

If it's any help, the number it is probably mapped to if it is VOIP will be a number that starts 055.  These calls are charged at either rate g6 or g21, and on BT these are 5p per minute.  g21 is charged at 4.5p per minute approx.  Either way, 055 numbers dialed directly are still cheaper than 0870.

Perhaps the webmaster could consider changing the form to state "Geographic (01/02/05)" to reflect the new numbers?  Then if any 055 or 056 numbers are known then they can be added to the database.

It might be worth trying the numbers allocated to Your Communications:

0191 299 ?xxx
0191 400 ?xxx

As the extension is only 3 digits, you'll need to try all 10 numbers from 0 to 9 replacing the question mark. But it's only 20 to try in all!

wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2005 at 10:27pm:

If it's any help, the number it is probably mapped to if it is VOIP will be a number that starts 055.  These calls are charged at either rate g6 or g21, and on BT these are 5p per minute.  g21 is charged at 4.5p per minute approx.  Either way, 055 numbers dialed directly are still cheaper than 0870.

Unfortunately we are talking about an internal VoIP system - the 0870 number goes to a computer owned by the company who then route it to the correct room over an internal network. In this case, the 0870 number is the only number associated with the room.

As for 055 numbers, I've never seen any service using them. Most offer a standard geographical or non-geographical number (i.e. 01 or 08 ). Besides, if 055 is charged at ~5p/min, I don't want to see them listed in the table with 01 or 02 numbers that I can dial in the evening for 5.5p/HOUR. If it's that price in evenings and weekends, it's actually more expensive than 0870!

By way of an update: I found the geographical number for the "Quay Point" Halls of Residence on Newcastle's Quayside: 0191 4000 --- the last 3 digits is the extension of the room itself.

I don't know if people want to add this to the database on here, but finding the "real" number cetainly saved me a small fortune in phone bills - thanks jrawle, and others who replied to my post very helpfull! Keep up the good work!

Thanks for posting that. It's in the database as an unverified number. But for it to be searchable, one of the Daves will want to test it. Would you be willing to give them your girlfriend's number to try? If it's OK with her, send them a private message (don't post it on the forum!)