I've just discovered that Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia has entries for 0845 and 0870. The 0870 article mentions a familiar website.  ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0870

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0845

Interesting to see details of 0870 pricing but have recently had a conversation with Direct Line about pricing of 0845 mumbers. (see my post under Direct Line). They are adamant that calls to 0845 are now charged at 3p per min peak times following a reduction in the call charge from 4p per min by BT and BT's website appears to confirm this. Does anybody know when and why BT reduced the price of a call to 0845?

davis wrote on Mar 4^th, 2006 at 1:39pm:

They are adamant that calls to 0845 are now charged at 3p per min peak times following a reduction in the call charge from 4p per min by BT and BT's website appears to confirm this. Does anybody know when and why BT reduced the price of a call to 0845?

Bt reduced its 0845 price in weekday daytime from 4p to 3p per minute on 1st July 2004 for BT Together customers when they abolished BT Standard Line Rental at £28.50 per quarter with £6.33 inclusive call allowance and made it compulsory to belong to BT Option 1 at £31.50 per quarter.  So an increased line rental of over £9 per quarter for many people.

BT cut 0845 to 3p per minute at the same time as they cut national calls from 7.91p to 3p per minute.  But 0845 still costs 60p per hour off peak and 01/02 local calls cost 5.5p per hour offpeak so 0845 can't be "local rate" can they. :o ::)

Also BT Option 2 customers get their 01/02 calls free in the evening and Option 3 customers get their 01/02 calls free at all times.  This does not however apply to 0845 numbers.  Ipso fact they are not local rate.  This is just a game of continued lies and deceit played by those who continue to run these 084/7 numbers.  They are aided and abetted in this deceit by people like BT who still show 0845 as Local Rate or Lo-Call on their bills even when it is not.  They are also aided and abetted by Ofcom who do nothing directly to stop the continued lies that 084/7 are Local Rate and National Rate.

Many thanks for your informative reply about 0845 pricing NGM-makes things very clear. If only Ofcom and BT could be so helpful with their information but perhaps they don't understand how it works!!!

davis wrote on Mar 6^th, 2006 at 9:59pm:

Many thanks for your informative reply about 0845 pricing NGM-makes things very clear. If only Ofcom and BT could be so helpful with their information but perhaps they don't understand how it works!!!

Old proverb say men from BT speak with forked tongues about their true intentions on 084/7 numbers.

Mr Ian Livingston, CEO of BT Retail says this:-

http://business.scotsman.com/banking.cfm?id=764772005

But  BT business telecoms sales website incredibly still says this:-

www.bt.com/btcom-bin/btcom/store/product/catalog.jsp?tab=Phone+lines+%26+call+services&subcat=-32961&com.bea.event.type=linkclick&oLName=link.searchresults&oLDesc=KB_548

Lo-Call (0845)
Let new and existing customers contact you for only the price of a local call no matter where they are in the country.

NationalCall (0870)
Customers calling your business from anywhere in the UK only pay the cost of a basic national call rate.

davis wrote on Mar 4^th, 2006 at 1:39pm:

They are adamant that calls to 0845 are now charged at 3p per min peak times following a reduction in the call charge from 4p per min by BT and BT's website appears to confirm this. Does anybody know when and why BT reduced the price of a call to 0845?

BT's standard local rate, which also applies to 0845, is 3.95p/min for the small minority of customers who are not on an option scheme like Together (e.g. customers on Light User).  So it's not correct to say that daytime calls to 0845 are always charged at 3p/min, even on BT.  On other service providers, the costs are usually more than 3p/min.

By the way, I see that the Wikipedia articles are being used to advertise 0845/0870 number providers (see the links at the bottom of the articles).

I cant see any External Links other then Saynoto, BT and OfCon

mc661 wrote on Mar 8^th, 2006 at 5:15pm:

I cant see any External Links other then Saynoto, BT and OfCon

You may need to go here.  ;D

If that doesn't work, go here.  ;)

Yes I have done DAVID

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External links

   * BT UK Price List
   * saynoto0870 Web Site
   * Ofcom web site

Category: Area codes in the United Kingdom

Try the 0845 article -- that's where the adverts are (of course, being Wikipedia, anyone could remove them at any time).