Does anybody know of the verse & chapter of the Law for this?

I'm told it is Illegal to be put on hold, on any phone call.
unless, having been asked for permission FIRST by a LIVE speaking person.
The way it used to be! And NOT some recording.. >:(
 
This information came to me from someone that has just finished a training course for Banking telephone loan sales.
The BIGGEST culprits for this I find are Service providers, of any kind...

Other questions;
How do we get rid of 0870 numbers?
and any other expensive phone numbers.
Why should we pay for line rentals?
Don't they make enough profit on the cost of calls!

~ Thread title changed by Dave

GetRidOf-0870 wrote on Jan 21^st, 2006 at 1:25pm:

Why should we pay for line rentals? Don't they make enough profit on the cost of calls!

I don't think that paying for line rental is wholly unreasonable - the cost of installing and maintaining the line and associated equipment is in some ways separate from the cost of actually making a call.

Some users may have their line rental with, say, BT, but:

• make all / most of their calls with another provider;
  
• make very few calls but use the line mainly for incoming calls;
  
• make few calls but have a line for other purposes, e.g. alarm connection to a service centre.
  

In all of these instances, the line provider is going to make little or no profit from the calls, so charging for maintaining an active line separately from the calls is not unreasonable.

(These comments relate to the principle of charging line rental, not to whether the current cost of line rental is reasonable.)

Perhaps we should be discussing the amount they charge for the line.

What is a reasonable figure.  I certainly don't think £10.50 a month is reasonable, but perhaps something more like £5 per month.

Also, remember that when you receive calls, BT take a cut from it.  Before coming on this site, I always thought that landlines accepted calls for free, and only mobiles, and NGN/Premium rate charges the originating operator, but it appears that the going rate is something like 0.3p per minute peak to less than 0.1p per minute off peak.  This means that by having a line installed and accepting calls, even if BT didn't charge line rental, would still bring in some profit.

In the mobile world, someone on a PAYG mobile making very few calls, the mobile provider relies on the fact that the phone will receive calls to justify having a number for free.  Also mobile phone companies charge each other 3p for receiving a text from another network.  As far as the main mobile companies are concerned, they send and receive a fairly equal amount from each other, but their main motivation is charging one way providers (websites that offer texting either free, or a subscription service, and companies sending out bulk texts either for free, or charged for) who don't accept incoming texts.

Therefore people might think that having a phone number and not spending any money to the company supplying the number is a free lunch, and the phone company isn't making a profit, but every time you accept a call on a BT line, money does go to BT even if the person calling you is using a free calls package, even though the amount of money involved is very small.  This is why phone companies can offer free landline calls.

Time to think again about line rental then.  Although I only pay BT for my line rental and make my calls from Tele2, and my mobile inclusive minutes, I still receive plenty of calls which help boost BTs profits.

With all the new VOIP companies starting up, along with the more established cable companies who are receiving similair amounts from BT for calls terminating on their networks, perhaps BT should do more to keep our custom and realise a number that isn't used for outgoing calls is still profitable!!

On the subject of whether line rental should be abolished or not; I don't think it's clear cut. If packages were to be introduced with no line rental, I would expect call charges to be higher.


Shiggaddi wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2006 at 10:52pm:

Perhaps we should be discussing the amount they charge for the line. What is a reasonable figure.  I certainly don't think £10.50 a month is reasonable, but perhaps something more like £5 per month.

From 1 January 2006 it now costs £11.00 per month to rent a BT line.


Shiggaddi wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2006 at 10:52pm:

Also, remember that when you receive calls, BT take a cut from it. [...] it appears that the going rate is something like 0.3p per minute peak to less than 0.1p per minute off peak.  This means that by having a line installed and accepting calls, even if BT didn't charge line rental, would still bring in some profit.

And why should BT not be allowed to make a profit on this?


Shiggaddi wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2006 at 10:52pm:

In the mobile world, someone on a PAYG mobile making very few calls, the mobile provider relies on the fact that the phone will receive calls to justify having a number for free. ...

But for those mobile subscribers who aren't on pay as you go, the line rental they pay isn't that in the true sense of the phrase. A pay monthly user pays for the handset and inclusive minutes at average lower rates than they otherwise would have done. Additional minutes are often charged at rates not too dis-similar to those on pay as you go tariffs.

So for pay monthly to be of benefit, you must desire a new handset and you must know how many minutes you expect to use before commencing. Use less than your allowance and your average pence per minute is higher, and use more and you pay rates similar to pay as you go. Either way, your average pence per minute will be higher than had you used exactly the amount of minutes that your plan provides. Have I got that right or have I misunderstood what these mobile providers are about?


Shiggaddi wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2006 at 10:52pm:

Also mobile phone companies charge each other 3p for receiving a text from another network.  As far as the main mobile companies are concerned, they send and receive a fairly equal amount from each other, but their main motivation is charging one way providers ...

That's most interesting Shiggaddi, I didn't know that.


Shiggaddi wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2006 at 10:52pm:

Therefore people might think that having a phone number and not spending any money to the company supplying the number is a free lunch, and the phone company isn't making a profit, but every time you accept a call on a BT line, money does go to BT even if the person calling you is using a free calls package, even though the amount of money involved is very small.  This is why phone companies can offer free landline calls.

I thought that landline providers offer 'free' calls because the cost of terminating the calls is offset by the cost of the package itself. Thus, if more calls are made on inclusive packages, telcos will have to increase the price of those packages.

As far as mobile providers goes, the charges they levy for terminating the calls is reflected in the rates landline providers charge to call them. Thus, they must get far more than 0.3p/min on even the lowest priced call.


Shiggaddi wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2006 at 10:52pm:

Time to think again about line rental then.  Although I only pay BT for my line rental and make my calls from Tele2, and my mobile inclusive minutes, I still receive plenty of calls which help boost BTs profits.

You appear to make out that the objective is to not 'boost' BT's profits? Thus, are you suggesting that BT should not be allowed to make a profit?


Shiggaddi wrote on Jan 22^nd, 2006 at 10:52pm:

With all the new VOIP companies starting up, along with the more established cable companies who are receiving similair amounts from BT for calls terminating on their networks, perhaps BT should do more to keep our custom and realise a number that isn't used for outgoing calls is still profitable!!

Why should any company be interested in keeping customers who do not reward it with profit?

If you are suggesting that the 0.3p/min BT makes on incoming calls is profit, then isn't that quite tiny in comparison to the origination of calls, and moreso, the provision of lines and termination of 0845 and 0870 numbers?