I am amazed to find that you believe this is a good thing.

This country would have no "free" dialup internet services if it was not from call revenue sharing. and without the free dialup services that were offered solely funded by revenue sharing then the uptake of internet and indeed the move to broadband would have been crippled by the provision of geographic numbers.

Many other businesses rely solely or additionally on revenue from the non geopgraphic number revenue share

This move to make it a legal requirement to give a geographic number as well as a non geographic number will only cause businesses to fold or to raise thier prices to make up for the lost revenue.

The end user will not be any better off for this attempt to petition the pm to make it a legal requirement, They will end up losing services totally or having a vastly restricted choice of available services and in cases where other revenue streams are open to customers and the revenue share is used as a subsidy towards the cost of providing support you will find prices rising or the requirement for every customer to pay an upfront amount every period for support instead.

Either way it is the end user that loses.

Whilst it may benefit a few people trying to save every penny regardless of the cost to service providers whilst it is a limited thing like it is here, if it is made a requirement then you will have succeded in crippling the country.  That may sound dramatic but move this back 5 years and we would not have the internet industry we have today in this country so what other innovations will this stop?

I urge you to take some time to think about the consequences of your actions before just thinking of saving 20p on a call for support where that 20p is all that is used to cover the costs of providing the support in the first place.

I find this a most staggering post, particularly on this website.   I would suggest you look at the posts regarding the (mis)use of ngns by doctors and other public organisations.   I would point out that, when I buy a product or service, I expect that payment to cover the cost; if I then have problems with the product or service why on earth should I pay again to obtain a remedy?   As another recent post said, if organisations/businesses were not making a profit from customer service calls, maybe they would make more effort to get things right first time!  To claim that some business are totally reliant on revenue share is, I believe, stretching credibility too far and, indeed, if this is the case, does not say much for the business acumen of those running them - maybe the time has come for them to fail as, ngns or not, they have little future and, like Farepak, will fold leaving customers in the lurch.

I really do think that, for you to portray people who object, quite reasonably, to paying twice for the same thing, as penny-pinching is, quite frankly, offensive.   I would ask you, when you do your weekly shopping & are told the cost, do you offer to pay double the amount or decline free offers to support the likes of Tesco???   I think not!!!

Yes we can all see that in SOME situations 08 numbers are just an attempt to grab money but take for instance a free internet provider who only earn revenue from the revenue share of you calling an 08 number.  That is thier sole revenue. The service you buy from them is only paid for by the cost of the calls to the 08 number that is how you buy the service from them. you make no payments directly to them.

How therefore is saying that they depend on the revenue share "stretching credibility too far" do you just randomly send them money as well?

Like I said in my post you need to think about the consequences of your actions. Not everyone earning revenue share is doing it to to make sure you are "paying twice for the same thing" when the only thing you are paying is the cost of the 08 call!

So before you try to put words in my mouth and acuse me of calling posters "penny-pinching" please re-read my post and you will see I basically point out that you cannot paint this as a black and white situation.

In the same scenario as I have already explained above, the only payment you are making for the service in these situations is the cost of the call, so therefore you are hardly Paying twice when you need to call for support as you have problems with your computer that you did not buy from the service provider or offer any other form of payment to them for. They are having to provide (in some circumstances) highly skilled staff to solve the problems you are having and also paying the expense of providing and managing a call centre from the revenue share and you say that is paying twice?

Yes there is a need for some form of regulation but a blanket call for all 08 numbers to also advertise a geographic number is not the way to go as there are obviously many situations you have not given any consideration to and cannot see past a very blinkered view of 08 numbers only being used where you are also making other payments for a product or service.

If this posting makes at least 1 person think about the consequences and realise that there is more to life than doctors and shopping then I have achieved what i set out to do.

Anigel, I think you have completely missed the point. People who post here don't object to the use of these numbers for dial up internet to provide the funding of these services. I have no objection in fact to any premium number services. They can be a very useful way of funding game shows, dial up internet, support services etc.

Our objection is to the misuse of 08XX number. They do not come under premium rate regulation and are usually with misleading quotes as to their cost (Local, National). Consequently there is massive misuse and abuse of them. They should be scrapped. Why for instance doesn't someone who uses an 0870 number use an 09 number instead with the same cost. The reason is that they can con the public.

if you don't believ this just look at the scams that have been posted to the site over the last few days.

anigel wrote on Nov 29^th, 2006 at 1:10pm:

Yes we can all see that in SOME situations 08 numbers are just an attempt to grab money but take for instance a free internet provider who only earn revenue from the revenue share of you calling an 08 number.  That is thier sole revenue. The service you buy from them is only paid for by the cost of the calls to the 08 number that is how you buy the service from them. you make no payments directly to them.

No one here has ever objected to the use of revenue sharing 0845 numbers to fund dialup ISPs, our objection is the the use of these numbers for principally voice based services to customer contact centres and shops and businesses that were previously on geographic numbers.  It is due to the complete shambolic incompetence of Ofcom and its predecessor OFTEL that pay as you go internet access numbers shared the same code and tariff as voice based services to call centres run by charities, government and some businesses and still scandalously missold as Lo-Call or Local, even they have not been any such thing for several years for anyone on all 01/02 calls package.

We do not even demand an end to revenue share calls to private sector call centres, although we do demand it for doctors and all government contact centres supplying monopoly government services.

What we argue is that the EU Misleading Advertising Directive should be enforced and that numbers which are covert premium rate numbers involving revenue share should not be purposely misdescribed by all the worst perpetrators like Sky and the Royal Bank of Scotland as Lo-Call/Local and National rate.  If the services could only be delivered on 09 prefixed numbers with an announcement that your call cost includes a surcharge to pay for the cost of operating the service then we would be relatively happy.

These 084/7 numbers have only flourished due to the massive lie that the telecoms industry perpetrated of claiming they were local and national rate to call centres and consumers while in fact earning an ever growing hidden revenue share.  Ofcom now propose to repeat that lie by scandalously allowing 0871 numbers to be called Business Rate, thereby presumably implying that it is usual for all businesses to have one and demand revenue share to call them.  That is nothing short of a scandal when Ofcom should be there to encourage competition and lower calling prices for ordinary phone calls to companies.

Has anyone on here ever said that there should not be 09 quiz numbers?  No we just would argue that the callers should know the poor odds of getting through and that the chances of their 75p flate rate call being connected are utterly negligible.  Also we would demand that all higher cost premium rate services should have default activated PIN number access so other users of a telephone line cannot just steal from the bill payer who effectively provides a blank cheque to fund all such NGN services (be they 118, 084/7 or 09).

So you are wrong to claim that we oppose all 084/7 numbers but we deplore their abuse and the cynical excuse given by Ofcom to maintain the abuse on the once lower cost 0845 numbers on the basis that it would supposedly be too difficult in Feb 2008 for the by then fast evaporating dialup ISP industry to move customers who still need those service to a specific code solely for dialup ISPs where revenue share would still be allowed.

It is the failure of the regulator to stop misdescription of these calls which in turn explains doctors for instance adopting them (which they would never do if they had to state the numbers were premium rate and the amount of the revenue share going to the service provider or their client) to which we object and want stopped.

I hope that clarifies the situation for you.

Anigel, how is it NOT paying twice when I have an inclusive call package?   I think you are being disingenuous regarding dial up internet as no one would perceive these as telephone calls.   How people choose their ISP is an entirely different matter and there is no scam if they choose to sign up to that service knowing the cost (as long as ISP do not subsequently change to a more expensive dial up number).   The scam is to do with telephone calls, particularly involving essential services, those that people cannot avoid (generally public services) and after sales matters where the customer's only choice is to be ripped off by calling an expensive (as opposed to free if on a call package)number or being ripped off by being left with faulty goods/services.   I really cannot feel any sorrow anyway for an ISP and I repeat, if their financial basis is so insecure, I would be reluctant to be involved with them anyway because of the consequences when the company folds.

Quote:

This country would have no "free" dialup internet services if it was not from call revenue sharing. and without the free dialup services that were offered solely funded by revenue sharing then the uptake of internet and indeed the move to broadband would have been crippled by the provision of geographic numbers.

Excuse me, but what I constantly find amazing about posts from people like anigel is just how shallow and ill informed they are. What, pray, makes the United Kingdom so special that it appears to be incapable of expanding its technological base without ripping off its consumers with thinly disguised premium numbers? I have lived in Australia, the USA and the UK and it is only in the UK that such a system exists. Does this mean that the USA and Australia don't have successful businesses? No dial-up? No broadband? Inferior customer service? What utter garbage!

I would add that customer service in the USA and Australia is so far in front of that I experienced in the UK that there is just no comparison. And - that is with almost ubiquitous use of FREE 1-800 numbers in the USA and local (untimed ie 25c) 1-300 calls in Australia.

Regulation and control of the telecommunications industry in the UK is an utter and total shambles. If anything, it is worse than most third world countries. Scams of all sorts abound, and the regulator is so crooked that it is incapable of policing them. Instead, with regulatory approval, the scammers are allowed and encouraged to fleece the population for every penny that can be extracted. I believe that these disguised 'premium' numbers cost the UK consumer in excess of 1.5 billion pounds extra last year!

In short, the whole situation is an absolute disgrace.

mikeinnc,

I completely agree with all your comments.

You will note that anigel has now scuttled away back under his stone no doubt to carry on trying to sell more NGN numbers to unsuspecting punters in the usual dark and shadowy way.