From Oct 2006 NTL are increasing the cost of calls to 0845/0870 numbers


The New rates are:  Daytime Evening Weekend  
                      0845     5p         4p        3p
                      0870     10p       8p         6p

 
Existing  rates: Daytime  Evening Weekend
        0845        4.50        2.25      1.25
        0870        7.99        3.85       2.99
                       
http://www.home.ntl.com/page/phonepricechange

They are also introducing a new flat rate phone charge to UK landlines for calls outside of our “unlimited” tariffs. From then, for such calls you’ll pay 3p per minute no matter what time of day you call – this includes cable-to-cable calls.

Connection charges of 6p a chargeable call remain unchanged.



~Edited by bbb_uk: Amended title to include TW

Why does anyone use cable for their phone calls?  They're such a rip-off.

The new 0845/0870 charges, when compared with BT Together [from 1/10/06] and 18185 [from a BT landline] prove it:

0845

NTL - 6p connection plus:
5p/minute weekdays
4p/minute evenings
3p/minute weekends

BT - 3p 'set-up fee' plus:
3p/minute weekdays
1p/minute evenings
½p/minute weekends

18185 - 4p connection plus:
3p/minute weekdays
½p/minute evenings
½p/minute weekends


0870

NTL - 6p connection plus:
10p/minute weekdays
8p/minute evenings
6p/minute weekends

BT - 3p 'set-up fee' plus:
7.11p/minute weekdays
3.69p/minute evenings
1½p/minute weekends

18185 - 4p connection plus:
5p/minute weekdays
3p/minute evenings
1p/minute weekends

How can they possibly justify charging twice as much as BT and one and a half times as much as 18185 for connection and 6 times more per minute than either of them for a weekend 0845 call?

They do not have to justify it. Ofcom's latest advertisement simply tells us that this is all part of their improved world of telecoms where we have the choice.
Why on earth did this country go for duplicated plant? Rather than pressing BT to make better use of fibre. We might then have better broadband.

Hi Heinz, thanks for the helpful post.  

Can you indicate if the charges are per second or rounded up to the next minute.

If you have time, can you also post the previous or existing price structure.  
Can you include 01/02

5p/min to phone NTL Customer Services.  :o

Dave wrote on Sep 11^th, 2006 at 8:29am:

5p/min to phone NTL Customer Services.  :o

Their is a suggestion in this cable forum thread they are getting rid of 0845 cs number and bringing in free access 150  for cs and 151 for technical enquiries.
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=51203

Some people indicate it already works in their areas.

Dave wrote on Sep 11^th, 2006 at 8:29am:

5p/min to phone NTL Customer Services.  :o

10p/min to ring an 0870^*.

I wonder if they've increased 0871 but just 'forgotten' to mention it?


^* Don't forget the 6p connection fee  ;)

NTL have downgraded the Weekend Packageas well.

The weekend tariff includes National Weekend Calls at moment as well as local
see http://www.home.ntl.com/invt/talkunlimitedlocal

But according to http://www.home.ntl.com/page/phonepricechange

Only Local calls will be free. National weekend calls will be 3p a minute.

Heinz wrote on Sep 10^th, 2006 at 7:34pm:

0845 BT - 3p 'set-up fee' plus: 3p/minute weekdays 1p/minute evenings ½p/minute weekends 0870 BT - 3p 'set-up fee' plus: 7.11p/minute weekdays 3.69p/minute evenings 1½p/minute weekends

My understanding is that BT will not be charging a setup fee or rounding by the minute for 0845 and 0870 calls.  Its only 01 and 02 calls this is happening with?

If the setup fee is also to be applied to 0845 and 0870 calls then someone at Ofcom needs shooting (only methaphorically speaking of course as a figure of speech in case the pedantic Ofcom Communications Director happens to be reading this) very urgently.

wrote on Sep 13^th, 2006 at 5:27pm:

My understanding is that BT will not be charging a setup fee or rounding by the minute for 0845 and 0870 calls.  Its only 01 and 02 calls this is happening with? If the setup fee is also to be applied to 0845 and 0870 calls then someone at Ofcom needs shooting (only methaphorically speaking of course as a figure of speech in case the pedantic Ofcom Communications Director happens to be reading this) very urgently.

I really would like to think that was the case.

Unfortunately, the leaflet BT delivered with my paper bill recently includes the sections:


Quote:

Call Set-up Fee From 1st October 2006, the minimum call charge of 5.5p for residential customers will be replaced by a call set-up fee of 3p that will be charged at the start of each phone call. The call set-up fee will be applied to national and local geographic calls, premium rate calls, NTS calls (e.g. 0845, 0870), international calls and landline-to-mobile calls. However, it will not apply to zero-rated calls included in BT Together Option 2 and 3, BT Together Local Calls Option or Evening and Weekend UK geographical calls of up to an hour for Option 1 customers for which a charge of 5.5p per call will apply.

Quote:

Whole Minute Charging From 1st October 2006, each call will be rounded up to the next whole minute for national and local geographic calls, international calls, landline-to-mobile calls, premium rate service calls and NTS calls (e.g. 0845, 0870).

wrote on Sep 13^th, 2006 at 5:27pm:

My understanding is that BT will not be charging a setup fee or rounding by the minute for 0845 and 0870 calls.  Its only 01 and 02 calls this is happening with?

The call setup fee will apply to all calls but whole minute charging will only apply to calls to 01/02 UK landlines, calls to UK mobiles and international calls. The terms and conditions leaflet Heinz refers to says that whole minute charging also applies to premium rate and 0845/0870 NTS calls. This will not be the case, as Ben Verwaayen, BT's chief executive has confirmed.

How can such a mistake happen when these changes are all in the cause of simplifying the pricing? If the people at BT cannot understand what is what with regards billing, then how is Joe Public supposed to be aware?  ::)

I stand corrected.

Ofcom do need shooting for allowing a further uplift in the cost of calls to a class of numbers where normal competitive market forces to drive the cost of calls down are not at work.

But then as Bobby has so recently been making clear to us it is the hijacked by telecoms industry interests Ofcom and their even worse predecessors OFTEL that are the source of the problem rather than merely having made a poor fist of controlling it.

Allowing BT a totally free hand in setting line rental and NGN prices when all it then does is to drive prices upwards is quite simply outrageous.

One would have expected BT's reason for introducing a connection fee instead of a minimum charge was so as to be able to quote a lower pence per minute rate for calls to compare with their competitors but no all they do is simply add the connection charge on top instead! :o ::)

Dave wrote on Sep 13^th, 2006 at 5:49pm:

How can such a mistake happen when these changes are all in the cause of simplifying the pricing? If the people at BT cannot understand what is what with regards billing, then how is Joe Public supposed to be aware?  ::)

All of Ofcom's so called efforts to introduce greater competition have introduced greater complexity which makes the consumer unable to compare prices.  One could therefore be forgiven with confusing Ofcom with a trade association for whom the main job is making it easier for its members to earn larger profits. ;) :o

First it was 118 directory enquiries where customers can be charged for connection and/or per minute and where the dq service is allowed to offer to put you through at exorbitant rates per minute without telling you that this is what is going to happen.

Then it was Line Rental where BT were allowed to make it compulsory for customers who only want to rent the line from it and make all their calls with other phone companies or via Voip to have to pay for a BT call discount scheme called Option 1 they do not use.  This increased the cost of their line rental by 50%.

Now Ofcom allows simple pence per minute pricing billed by the second only introduced by BT a few years back to be replace with old style prices rounded up by the minute and with the further confusion of a connection charge rather than the much easier to understand minimum charge.

When you look at who has been Ofcom's CEO and the quite outrageously anti consumer steps it has taken over the last three years you have to conclude that it is actually Ofcom which is the problem and you have to question exactly why such a commercially minded person  as Stephen Carter was put in charge of it. ;) >:( >:( >:(

wrote on Sep 13^th, 2006 at 6:00pm:

Now Ofcom allows simple pence per minute pricing billed by the second only introduced by BT a few years back to be replace with old style prices rounded up by the minute and with the further confusion of a connection charge rather than the much easier to understand minimum charge.

I think it's a case of companies taking advantage of consumer ignorance of basic mathematics. How do you explain (without doing 'boring' maths) that a 3p/min call on BT or Talk Talk isn't the same as a 3p/min call with a provider that charges by the second?

Dave wrote on Sep 13^th, 2006 at 6:16pm:

I think it's a case of companies taking advantage of consumer ignorance of basic mathematics. How do you explain (without doing 'boring' maths) that a 3p/min call on BT or Talk Talk isn't the same as a 3p/min call with a provider that charges by the second?

I think its more a case of a spineless regulator that is actually complicit in the scams rather than in creating a regulatory environment in which straightforward price competitition will flourish.

It makes you wonder why the petrol industry has never thought of trying to lower headline prices at the pumps by 10p per litre but subject to a basic £5 per tank fill up fee.  Could it be perhaps because the petrol industry is regulated by the zealous OFT and Competition Commission who unlike Ofcom would come down like a ton of bricks upon such behaviour and suggest that such distorted pricing was grossly unfair to the low mileage driver and customers of car hire rental companies only needing to put a few litres back in the tank before they returned the car.

It is an established principle in Economics that the free market only operates properly if there are perfect supplies of information equally available to and readily understood by all consumers.  All these attempts to introduce more complex and impossible to compare pricing into telephone calls are ways to ensure the customer does not undertand pricing properly and so cannot make proper or accurate choices between suppliers.  The fact that the cost of a one minute call to an 0870 number with BT is going up by nearly 50% from 7.51p per minute to 10.51p per minute just leaves speechless with fury and disbelief.

I believe that if the CEO of Ofcom had been someone other than Stephen Carter then it would behaved quite differently as a regulator.  Hopefully his successor may actually have consumer protection at the core of his regulatory agenda.

Well as I predicted, Telewest are following NTL by increasing their prices the same.  See Telewest's update page here.

Note that it states that calls to 0845/0870 are changing but the .pdf still has the old prices.  I believe they've just not got around to updating this .pdf and when they've done this, their prices will be the same as NTL.

In other words, 10p/min daytime to call an 0870 number - amongst the other price increases.

I also amended the thread title to include 'TW' as well.


TW/NTL must be THE MOST expensive teleco out there.

Well this is abit intresting as to what arrived from the postie this morning... letter from NTL about new call rates.

As the link will show it appears as from next year they will be dropping the cost of their call packages but by how much it seams undecided yet, but outside the call rate packages, call rates will be carged @ 3ppm including cable to cable calls.

One intresting thing though is the apparant re-introduction of the 150 (Cust services) & 151 (Faults) numbers which will be free to use.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stan_marsh14/pics/NTL1.jpg

stanmarsh14 wrote on Sep 16^th, 2006 at 2:05pm:

..it appears as from next year they will be dropping the cost of their call packages but by how much it seams undecided yet, but outside the call rate packages, call rates will be carged @ 3ppm including cable to cable calls.

The small print at the bottom indicates their TalkUnlimited24 will be £10 as it reads, "The saving of £4.00 from the current £14.00 price of TalkUnlimited24..."

This is still more expensive than BT albeit only slightly.  Still no mention of how much, if any, their evening & weekend plan will be reduced.

Question is why are they waiting until next year when right now their prices are so much more expensive than BT, they must have customers leaving them or at the very least moving their landline to BT.

stanmarsh14 wrote on Sep 16^th, 2006 at 2:05pm:

One intresting thing though is the apparant re-introduction of the 150 (Cust services) & 151 (Faults) numbers which will be free to use.

So they've had their fingers burnt with the 0845 customer service number then?  ;D

Dave wrote on Sep 16^th, 2006 at 7:46pm:

So they've had their fingers burnt with the 0845 customer service number then?  ;D

I complained the last time I had to call them. They responded 'Everyone else does it' to which I replied 'So what. That doesn't make it acceptable!'

Robert

bbb_uk wrote on Sep 14^th, 2006 at 10:05am:

10p/min daytime to call an 0870 number. TW/NTL must be THE MOST expensive teleco out there.

Except for cellular companies, THE MOST - double the price per minute of using a BT line and 18185!

yes but if your phone is not working how do you ring 150 151?