With due respect for the work done by Rick - here is a more comprehensive list of UK teleco rates with a cost comparison for each.  The site has some good resources and gives addreses for the operators and in some cases non premium direct phone numbers

http://www.magsys.co.uk/telecom/residx.htm

I know this site is about the possibly bad use of 08xxx etc but I am a little confused in that I have looked in MSE's 'cheapest call providers' to discover several companies who offer good rates and seemingly to a wider range of international destinations without the need to register or commit payment by credit card etc---- simply by using an apropriate access no.

TELESAVERS  and CHEAPEST CALLS are just two.
Charges appear on BT bills.

Am I missing something?

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I'm not sure you actually realise what you said there JB.

Using my regular Friday call to the local Chinese (Happy Chinese New Year BTW) as an example.  It always takes less than a minute to place my order.  I dial their number with my usual 18866 prefix.  (1p connection and 0p per minute).  It would cost you 2.7p in your example.

Now the wife phones her mother after we've eaten the Chinese.  She dials using our usual 18866 prefix and chats for 2 hours 36 minutes.   (1p connection and 0p per minute).  In your example, it would cost £4.21.  Even on BT, it'd cost 15.5p (3 x 5.5p) and would require remembering to re-dial twice so as not to exceed BT's 60 minute limit for a 5.5p evening call on BT Together Option 1.

OK, the second example is a little extreme but, as you see, your examples are more costly on both occasions.

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Assuming the 2.7p/minute quoted is charged on a per second basis rather than being rounded up to the next minute .....

We joined the Utility Warehouse, part of telecom Plus, because it looks like they offer us the best overall deal - there are of course possible cheaper deals on some calls, for which prefixes can be dialled if that is significant. We just liked the whole package  so have now become an Independent Distributor which gives us a further discount on our own calls! check it out at www.storeplus.co.uk/?exref=766114
select "utilities"
Let us know what you think!

Even leaving aside 18866 and 1899, there are plenty of ways of calling abroad for under 5p, free from included minutes on a mobile for a start

edit - in fact, looking at it again, all the calls Bill mentions are free from included minutes on a mobile.

So 500 min a month for £2.99, less £20 cashback on an old phone, or maybe 230 min a month for -(minus)£30 a year must be the cheapest of all

only 0870 and 0845 calls not included; if it wasn't for 50 min a month on an O2 contract, they could be 90% of  annual total

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So what exactly have 3U discovered about managing to route calls cheaply to 0870 that no one else (not even call18866) has managed to discover?  The deal has been running too long now for them not to have withdrawn it if it was actually costing them lots of money?

After all poor old BT couldn't  manage to make a profit when people paid 2p per minute for 0870 from their payphones.  Not even at the weekend apparently.  Although one would hope that at the current drastically increased 11p or 13p a minute rate to 0845 and 0870 numbers, at all times, from a BT Payphone that BT might perhaps now be making at least a penny or too from each of these calls, especially at the weekend!