From the 1st August BT is changing the way it charges for calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers. These calls will move from Daytime-Evening-Weekend rates to Daytime (6am – 6pm) and Evening (6pm – 6am) rates.

0845 calls will change from 3p /1p/0.5p to 2p/0.5p per minute whilst 0870 calls will change from 7p/3.5p/1.5p to 6p/1.5p per minute.

The connection charge will also increase from 3p/call to 6p/call..

More here

Regards
Sunil

And, what most people are overlooking in that apparently innocuous statement is that, during the day on Saturdays and Sundays, 0845 and 0870 calls will be FOUR TIMES AS EXPENSIVE as they are now - they will cost 2p/minute instead of ½p/minute and 6p/minute instead of 1½p/minute respectively.

PLUS the 'call set-up fee' will DOUBLE - from 3p to 6p.

Quote:

BT will introduce further price changes from August 1. The cost of calls to UK landlines at evenings and weekends is set to fall by 18 per cent, from 5.5p an hour to 4.5p. This is when people spend the most time making such calls. The cost of daytime calls will change from 3p per minute to 3.25p and there will be a revision to the set up fee for certain calls7 with this one-off charge moving from 3p per call to 6p. This fee does not apply to weekend or evening calls to UK landlines. 7 Applies to national and local calls, premium rate calls, NTS calls, international calls and landline to mobile calls

So weekday daytime calls to 01/02 numbers on Together Options 1 and 2 will now be more expensive than 0845!

Ditto Heinz's comments about the dressing up of good news vs playing down and ignoring bad news. The above post is full of this spin and that is what is inherrantly wrong with the industry.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. It's all about moving the goalposts and leaving people thinking that they are better off. A state of confusion is what telecoms has become.

I bet Talktalk follow bt like the blind sheep they are!

Justin wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2007 at 8:27am:

I bet Talktalk follow bt like the blind sheep they are!

Surely this sort of thing should trigger the regulator into an investigation into how well competition is working.

Dave wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2007 at 11:27am:

Surely this sort of thing should trigger the regulator into an investigation into how well competition is working.

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Perhaps this is something we should be pushing an investigative programme like Panorama to investigate. It's not just the rip-off 0870, but the fact that the telcos just follow each other. What with the connection charge which was originally a cable thing and whole minute charging all of which have infested the major players and others like 18185 are pushing up the price but people don't seem aware.

Dave wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2007 at 9:54pm:

Perhaps this is something we should be pushing an investigative programme like Panorama to investigate. It's not just the rip-off 0870, but the fact that the telcos just follow each other. What with the connection charge which was originally a cable thing and whole minute charging all of which have infested the major players and others like 18185 are pushing up the price but people don't seem aware.

I have pushed Panorama and Dispatches and recently Whistleblower (who actually ask for viewers to send them program ideas) but so far no joy.

This is obviously a massive increase in prices because most business call centres are only open 10am to 6pm and 10am to 4pm on Saturday and Sunday, so they will now all be charged at the higher rate.

Clearly Ofcom made a massive error of judgement in de-regulating BT's prices.  But then again Ofcom's main agenda doesn't seem to be the protection of the UK citizen consumer does it? ;) ::) >:( :'(

The whole connection fee thing shouldn't even be legal as far as I'm concerned as it totally distorts consumer choice.  If supermarkets made you pay a milk purchase fee of £1 flat rate per time but then you could have as many litres of milk as you wanted for 5p each the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Competition would be down on them like a ton of bricks.

But when it comes to telecoms the Ofcom careerists just snooze quietly in their deckchairs waiting for their next invite to a nice business lunch with one of their old friends.  Utterly disgraceful.