I noticed this thread on MSE yesterday and thought it's worth a mention over here especially as I believe this is in response to Ofcom's rules that from middle of this month (give or take a few days) teleco's have to be more forthcoming with their call charges to NGN's including given them equal prominence as they do their ordinary geographical calls.

Calls to 08x, 084x and 0870 will, from 15th August, cost 15p/min for PAYG customers.  The general cost of these numbers varied in price from as high as 35ppm to as low as 5ppm depending on number and time of day, etc.

Calls to these numbers for PayMonthly customers is included in your inclusive call allowance (where applicable) except calls to 0871 numbers.  Calls to these numbers outside your inclusive call allowance are, according to o2 t&c, charged at normal geographical rates.

Also, these calls will be excluded from all PAYG tariffs and bolt-ons that come with inclusive minutes and will be charged for as mentioned above.

The only exception to this is the cost of the call to their customer services' 0870 number which will remain at 20p/min!

Although nothing was mentioned about contracts, I do believe it wont be long before these are excluded from inclusive minutes.

I know from recent previous experience that freephone calls cost at least 30ppm and although I was warned it was chargable although I wasn't warned how much it was costing me.  Luckily though I had a good idea how expensive it was and kept the call as short as possible and before anyone mentions it, nope I couldn't wait until I reached a landline/payphone.  ;)

It could be coincidence that the timing of this change is around the same time as this new rule that Ofcom are enforcing but I don't think so.  I believe it was done because o2 didn't want to openly publish the fact that they were charging upto 35ppm to call 08x, 084x and 0870 numbers so to make it look not as bad (especially compared to other networks), they've reduced the cost to 15ppm when compared to daytime calls but obviously evening & weekend calls are increased to 15ppm.

It would be interesting to see what other mobile networks will do, and more importingly, if the teleco's will actually stop hiding the cost of calls to NGN's and actually give them equal prominence as they do their geographical calls!

I suspect though, due to the high revenue return on these numbers, teleco's may "forget" to be more forthcoming and therefore may need Ofcom to persuade them to!

Update:

These call charges definitely apply to PAYG customers and according from what I can understand calls to NGN numbers from contracts are included in inclusive minutes (with the exception of 0871 numbers).  Calls to NGN's from a contract outside any inclusive minutes is apparently charged at normal call rates (ie geographical numbers).

See here for a breakdown of charges to special rate numbers (ie 08x numbers).

It will certainly be bad news if this applies to contracts!!

I have had a few contract mobiles in the past, and still have 1 at the moment, which came with 12 months free line rental, and lots of free minutes.

I use almost all the minutes to call my just dial 0870 and 0844 numbers.

As well as that, any times where I really have to call 0870 numbers, I have been able to use O2.

Although O2 customers might be able to use this as grounds for terminating contracts early, like they did over 07744 numbers.

What might happen is, new contracts that come into force might have these numbers excluded, with current customers unaffected.

Or they might bring the change across the board, but if customers complain hard enough, then these numbers would go back to being included but only for those who complain.

bbb_uk wrote on Aug 10^th, 2006 at 7:50pm:

I noticed this thread on MSE yesterday and thought it's worth a mention over here especially as I believe this is in response to Ofcom's rules that from middle of this month (give or take a few days) teleco's have to be more forthcoming with their call charges to NGN's including given them equal prominence as they do their ordinary geographical calls.

How exactly is this good for the consumer if these numbers were previously included in "free" minutes, but will now be excluded?

Let's hope Tesco (with no details of NGN costs on their site) follow the new rules, though.

jrawle wrote on Aug 16^th, 2006 at 11:19am:

bbb_uk wrote on Aug 10th, 2006 at 7:50pm: I noticed this thread on MSE yesterday and thought it's worth a mention over here especially as I believe this is in response to Ofcom's rules that from middle of this month (give or take a few days) teleco's have to be more forthcoming with their call charges to NGN's including given them equal prominence as they do their ordinary geographical calls. How exactly is this good for the consumer if these numbers were previously included in "free" minutes, but will now be excluded?

These prices are only applicable to PAYG customers and not all PAYG customers had inclusive mins, or if they did it may have been only inclusive evening & weekend mins (like me).  These calls did cost upto 35ppm so it really depends on the bolt-on you had and the time of the call to determine if you benefit or not.  For me, I'll benefit daytime but lose out evening & weekend but to be honest I try not to make calls to NGN's anyhow for obvious reasons.

Where it is good (or cheaper) in one respect, is balanced out by increases elsewhere.

It is also good that they will have to be more forthcoming with their prices.  Some teleco's don't display the cost of their NGN's or hide them in hard to find places.

Obviously in the case of o2, they didn't want people to realise that they were paying upto 35ppm to call these numbers so to come across as more reasonable price, they've reduced it in some circumstances but unfortunately increased it in other circumstances.

As mentioned in my OP, it is generally (as far as I'm aware) only o2 that included them so it was only a matter of time before they exclude them same as other networks.  I unfortunately think that contracts will eventually be excluded as well some time in the future.