The hotels.co.uk website says its London number costs 10p a minute:

0203 027 81 46
07.00 - 23.00 GMT
10p per minute


What do you make of this?

It's rubbish what the site says. That's not to say you won't pay 10 pence per minute though. You will pay whatever your provider charges you for geographical calls.

I guess that either they used to have a 0871 number, or that because they are an American company, they assume that they cost 10p a minute. Nevertheless, it doesn't cost 10p a minute - it will be either inclusive or charged at geographic rates (max 2p a min I think from a landline).

For a BT residential customer not subscribed to the Unlimited Anytime Call Plan, a daytime call to any 020 number is at the following rates, according to the duration:

1 minute = 14.45 ppm, 2 minutes = 9.85 ppm, 3 minutes = 8.32 ppm, 4 minutes = 7.55 ppm, 5 minutes = 7.09 ppm

The impact of the 9.2p call setup fee takes some time to wear off against the rate of 5.25 ppm.

If phoning to simply confirm that they are fully booked, or advise of a delayed arrival the rate of 10ppm could be an understatement.

Rates from other landline providers, mobile providers and for business tariffs may vary. Indeed BT rates vary as all of these quoted increased in the last week by at least 15%.

I think that this is taking the original contents of the post to the extreme. The point is that this number is charged as per any other geographical number on his or her tariff.

This could be 0ppm (where inclusive), 10ppm, or 20ppm (perhaps from a mobile).

I emailed them and they've changed it, to:

0203 027 81 46
24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Calls are charged at standard national rates.


The word 'national' isn't quite right, but anyway it's an improvement. And they're now 24 hours a day!

Perhaps you should suggest to them that they need to change to showing it in the proper 8 digit London number format of 020 3027 8146.  It then becomes obvious it is a regular London 020 number that will be charged at standard geographic call rates.  With an 020 number they don't really need to say anything at all as its the norm not to, although they could say "calls are charged at standard London number geographic call rates and will be covered by any inclusive or free minutes that are part of your mobile or landline calls package".

At the end of the day those who still believe there are area codes starting 0207 and 0208 and still don't understand that it all became 020 when 0171 and 0181 were scrapped are still going to wrongly imagine there is something unusual about London 020 3 numbers.....

 **  0203 027 81 46 **


It has only been a decade since the change, and they still can't get it right?


As above, it should be   (020)  3027   8146.

catj wrote on Oct 13^th, 2009 at 11:16pm:

As above, it should be   (020)  3027   8146.

A much more pedantic point - I think you will find that the parentheses in this context went some time ago as well, as did the hyphen for all-figure numbers. The grouping is however quite correct.

ITU-T recommendation E.123 http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-E.123/en recommends parentheses around area codes for geographic numbers when the area code is optional for some callers.

Ofcom sometimes uses that format, e.g. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consumer/2009/08/phone-numbers especially when making a point.

Adding parentheses to geographic area codes may have widely fallen into disuse, but it is still recommended. The main reason for the decline in usage is likely due to the fact that parentheses are not required for non-geographic numbers. I guess some people therefore incorrectly decided to drop them for all numbers.

Game, set and match on this one to catj I would say.

On consideration, I fully commend the excellent ITU paper, the various Ofcom items on numbering (although not that on pricing) and the Wikipedia article that refers to both.

If the proposed convention were fully in use and respected then we would have avoided the 0203 nonsense.

I fear that it is not generally respected in normal use, however I will myself immediately adopt it.

Many thanks to catj for this valuable piece of education. Do you do tennis coaching as well?

Not in this weather!

Can you explain this one?

From the Wikipedia article linked by SCV:


Quote:

When calling from abroad the initial 0 is not required, and so the E.123 format is recommended, e.g. +44 20 7222 1234 for a London number, +44 118 946 0555 for a Reading number, +44 151 496 0555 for a Liverpool number, +44 1223 345678 for a Cambridge number, and +44 7700 900555 for a mobile telephone number. UK numbers shown with a zero immediately after the country code, either with or without parentheses, are incorrectly formatted.

It is saying that +44 (0) 20 7222 1234 is incorrect. So how do you show a number in both national and international format without having to put it twice? Or is there no way round it but to list it in both formats, eg:

(020) 7222 1234 or +44 20 7222 1234

The ITU recommendation seems to suggest you have to show both.

That was always the recommendation.  I remember back in the '80s, when I was dong some headed paper, I was supposed to use the format:
Tel: 01 222 1234
Int: +44 1 222 1234

(ah, the nice short numbers pre-phONEday !)

Using +44 (0) 20etc  might be obvious to us but what would international callers unfamiliar with the UKs numbering plan do?  I've encountered foreign numbers expressed in this sort of format, and it certainly wasn't obvious if I should drop the bracketed or otherwise delineated numbers or not.

Yes. When writing a number in International Format, you write it so that callers from abroad simply dial their International Access Code (varies from country to country: 00 in most European countries, 011 in the US and Canada, and different again in many other countries) in place of the + sign, followed by ALL of the digits shown in the number.

If the caller is using a mobile telephone they can enter the + sign on the numeric keypad (it is usually either a long press or a double press on either the 0 or the * key) followed by all of the digits shown, and the mobile telephone network will sort out the correct international access.

A number in London, England would be shown as   +44  20  7234  5678   as those are the only digits an international caller needs to dial after their Access Code.

A number in Rome, Italy would be shown as   +39  06  444  5566   because the zero must still be dialled even when calling from outside Italy.


When showing a number in National Format, place a space between the area code and local number parts, so that it is clear which part is the area code.  If the area code is optional to dial for some people, such as callers located within the same area, place the combined trunk code (if there is one) and area code within a single set of parentheses. If the area code is not optional for some callers, you can omit the parentheses.

A typical London, England number might be shown as   (020)  7234  5678   and a New York, US number might appear as   212  234  5678   for example.

A number in Paris, France might be shown as   01  44 55 66 77   because the area code digits are not optional within France.  However when dialled from abroad, the leading zero is dropped.



Especially dangerous:  207  234  2345.  Is that a US number or a badly formatted London number?

Formats   (207)  234  2345   vs.   (020)  7234  2345   clarifies that; and   +1  207  234  2345   vs.   +44  20  7234  2345   does an even better job.

The French number would show as   01  44 55 66 77   or as   +33  1  44 55 66 77.


In general you have to show the number in one or other format, or else list it twice. This is because some countries use trunk codes and others do not, and because some have area codes while others have a closed numbering plan. It's not possible to cover all calling scenarios for all options in just one format, however most mobile devices will allow a number to be entered in the full International Format and can correctly 'drop' any redundant country or area code data when making a call.

This article is also useful:  http://revk.www.me.uk/2009/09/it-is-not-44-0207-123-4567.html