I haven't been active in the anti-0870 campaign for a while. I knew 03 numbers had been introduced, supposedly at geographical rates, and had seen the odd one advertised, e.g. for the RSPCA.

I thought the second part of the plan was that 0870 numbers would also have revenue sharing removed and be charged the same as geographical numbers. I assumed this was going ahead at some stage (I didn't know what the date was supposed to be).

This evening, I received the following in an e-mail newsletter from "Voipfone" (which I signed up for once when I was trialling different VOIP services, although I don't use them now):


Quote:

0870 – Ofcom changes postponed You may be aware that on 8th January 2008 Ofcom was to change the cost of calling an 0870 number to make it the same cost as calling an ordinary national number. (Roughly halving the peak rate cost). At the same time they intended to remove the revenue share element of the charge. (Operators receive a share of the income generated by calls to 0870 numbers which pays for the service they provide, perhaps a support line or in our case free telephone numbers and fax services.) This will make free 0870 services uneconomic for the industry and most companies will need to make previously free services chargeable. However, Ofcom have run into difficulties with this and have had to delay the implementation. We do not yet have a new date. For more information see: http://www.voipfoneuserforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=2700

I've just spent some time browsing through the forum, but can't find much about this.

So, whatever happened to the proposed change? Has it been scrapped? Of course, I was always sceptical that it would actually happen. Still, I didn't expect to see that in today's e-mail. Please can anyone update me?

See www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1193430920 :'(

I'm not sure why this has been removed from the list of Important Topics at the top of the forum by Dave and bbb.

Especially in view of today's date........................................... >:( >:( >:(

NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 1^st, 2008 at 1:02pm:

See www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1193430920 :'( I'm not sure why this has been removed from the list of Important Topics at the top of the forum by Dave and bbb.

I've re-stickied it at the top of the Chat listings.

I don't see why problems with announcements should prevent revenue share being removed from 0870. I say ban revenue sharing on 0870, then let the market decide how to price 0870 calls. That would be better than the current situation, where competition isn't possible thanks to the revenue share component.

I have also just read the ITU's recommendations, and I think it's open to interpretation whether pre-call announcements are allowed. Besides, there are already plenty of instances where an announcement is used where previously a tone was considered enough, e.g. the engaged tone. ("The number have called is engaged...") Surely that could mess up devices that are programmed how to respond in the case of a busy line?