For the princely sum of a month of £7 a month

you can now have Uk Mobile Calls and 0845 added to your inclusive 01/02/03/0870 minutes and Virgin Mobile Minutes.( Talk Unlimited Extra)

making the fully monty £15 a month.

http://store.virginmedia.com/phone/phone-fibre-optic/compare-fibre-optic/phone-xxl.html

The option for Unlimited packages to include calls to all UK mobiles will very shortly become the norm, as the additional termination fees on calls to mobiles are being reduced.

The exceptional inclusion of 0845 calls simply mirrors the perverse temporary measure taken by BT in 2009 in mistaken anticipation of an Ofcom change that never happened - removing the Service Charge component from 0845, as it has from 0870. In fact, Ofcom has kept it in place, will continue to do so, and indeed restore it to 0870.

Once the unbundled tariff is in place, it will become highly problematical (one must assume, illegal) to include the Service Charge element of 08 calls in a bundle. One expects to see the Access Charge element offered as an inclusive option - some would like its inclusion to be compulsory, but bundling Service Charges from a variety of Service Providers renders the unbundled tariff meaningless. The whole point is that the "Service Charge" element is paid on to the person called, not retained by one's own telephone company.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Dec 22^nd, 2012 at 5:40am:

The option for Unlimited packages to include calls to all UK mobiles will very shortly become the norm, as the additional termination fees on calls to mobiles are being reduced.

Unless your with BT of course where they just reduce the cost of the UK Mobile Call,s to half price if you pay extra on top of normal  inclusive call bundle,and you still pay a connection fee of course.  http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/landline/packages?packid=uapplus

bigjohn wrote on Dec 22^nd, 2012 at 6:25am:

Unless your with BT of course …

That is now. There are big changes coming. BT will not be left behind.

bigjohn wrote on Dec 22^nd, 2012 at 6:25am:

Unless your with BT of course where they just reduce the cost of the UK Mobile Call,s to half price if you pay extra on top of normal  inclusive call bundle,and you still pay a connection fee of course.  http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/landline/packages?packid=uapplus

Call prices to mobiles are not half-price with BT Anytime Plus; it is call rates to mobiles which are half price as the Call Set-up fee is not halved.

The BT page that the link goes to says that "Landline to UK mobile rates" are "Half price".

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Dec 22^nd, 2012 at 12:07pm:

bigjohn wrote on Dec 22nd, 2012 at 6:25am: Unless your with BT of course … That is now. There are big changes coming. BT will not be left behind.

Get away  ;D


They signalled their attention to offer inclusive mobile call bundles a while ago.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mobile-phones/8383505/Mobile-phone-calls-to-become-cheaper.html

Others are already ahead of them.

bigjohn wrote on Dec 22^nd, 2012 at 7:45pm:

Others are already ahead of them.

You are correct, although with Virgin Media this is very much with a top-end product.

By "big changes" I was referring to the choice about whether to have a landlines only or all calls package being an everyday decision for every landline subscriber, and then eventually that choice being removed, as it is now generally for mobile users.

If Talk Unlimited Extra takes off, then be sure that BT will be in there as well. Virgin Media has long been offering a number of special packages, which appear to have had only minimal take-up, as they have not been copied by others.

I had suspected that the landline providers would be dealing with the effect of the unbundling of charges for non-geographic calls first, with inclusive mobile calls being drawn in either at the same time or later. It now appears that this sequence could be reversed.