No one so far seems to have commented on this but it is undoubtedly directly related to 0870 issues in that (a) it directly increases the period each day when people have to pay 7.51p per minute to call an 0870 number and (b) it is yet a further indication of the complete incompetence of Ofcom in managing to control BT who still continue to walk all over them.

So for those of you who are not yet aware of this issue since Thursday 24th February 2005 BT has extended the weekday peak calling period from 8am to 6pm on Monday to Friday to 6am to 6pm Monday to Friday.  This is surely wholly inexplicable since at this time (6am to 8am) most people are either still asleep in bed (for those living near work and working non American hours) or eating their breakfast or on a train or in a car travelling to work.  But what they are not doing between 6am and 8am is making business to business phone calls to other businesses.  If they are making calls it is to friends & relatives.

Obvious questions occur like how did Ofcom allows this or was Ofcom's permission required and if not why not, given that BT has Significant Market Power in the fixed line telecoms market place and also given that the weekday peak calling period has been 8am to 6pm practically since God was a boy (although once upon a time BT/the GPO used to charge more again for calls in the weekday morning period).

How can BT get away with this?  They already have enough scams going like charging normal weekday peak time prices on weekdays that are bank holidays (eg Christmas Day) and charging by call length for 118500 directory enquiry calls thus making it in their interests to train their operators to carry out inefficient searches.

Is Mr Kip Meek at all on the ball at Ofcom or was he simply both kipping and or being meek to BT when they made this proposal.

Where was the Ofcom consultation on this.  Why did no one on this website seem to know about it?

Words fail me.  How can this further BT outrage have been allowed only a few months after Ofcom let them get away with abolishing Standard Line Rental and increasing the quarterly line rental by £9.70 for anyone routing most, but not all, of their calls away from BT.  Do Ofcom vaguely even have a clue what they are doing?

What next?  Presumably next 6pm to 8pm will become part of the weekday peak (that would actually be more justifiable than 6am to 8am given the typical opening hours of shops) and then after that 8pm to 10pm and then 10pm to midnight.  Perhaps Saturday mornings can be classified into the weekday peak period as well by BT.  That would increase 0870 calling costs on Saturday from 1.5p per minute to 7.51p.

What do other people think?  I can't believe that no one else on here who isn't already fuming about this even though I know that most of us do not use BT to make our calls.  But despite this it is obvious that say TalkTalk and Onetel will follow suit so that in due course our own free offpeak calls period will be reduced.

What do the rest of you think?  Am I just a voice in the wilderness on all this?

Quote:


All there is to be known about them is as follows:-

Their website:-

www.call18866.co.uk

And my recent post about them in the Cheap Call Providers section of this forum, which has so far generated no responses:-

www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?board=cheapcalls;action=display;num=1...

Other than that all we know about them is that they only charge 1p at all times to connect an 01 or 02 geographic call, no matter how long, and have pretty cheap rates of 2p per minute to call major European countries and the USA.  They are no good for 0870 and 0845 calls where they charge more than BT.

But I understand that TalkTalk and Onetel are now offering free 01 and 02 calls in the offpeak (evening and weekend) if you take one of their CPS calling services.  So you will only want to use 18866 from Monday to Friday daytime.  But unless you make more than 1000 Monday to Friday daytime 01 or 02 calls a month then its bound to be cheaper to use them than anything like BT Option 3 or TalkTalk's Talk 3 which charge you a set amount of £10 or more a month, regardless of whether or not you actually manage to make 1000 01 or 02 calls.

But for reasons best known to them call18866 are a small business and only want to grow slowly.  This seems to be because it is riding on the back of spare capacity in an existing medium sized telecoms business.

I have been with them for over a year though and entirely happy with generally very reliable, very cheap and good call quality.  Also totally accurate billing where call charges are available on their website a few seconds after you complete the call.

I hope this helps

Quote:

Overall the cost of geographic uk calls has gone through the floor but BT has tried to recoup nearly all of this by switching 30 to 40% of day time calls on to non geographic 084x/087x

And of course there is the small matter of the BT line rental.  That's £31.50 per quarter (if you use DD) plus £10.50 for 2 or more network services (most of us have Caller Display and Call Waiting at least) = £42 x 4 quarters = £168 just to have that old thin copper wire connected.  That's before it gets a broadband connection for at least another £15 a month on top.  Of which BT Wholesale again receive the lion's share unless you are in an LLU area.

Bearing in mind just how low standing charges are for something like metered water (£10 for each 6 month period) the BT line rental is little short of a national disgrace, especially as they block all competition on this by selling wholesale line rental to their rivals at almost the same price as the retail price to their own customers.

I personally would welcome the bankruptcy of BT and its replacement with a gas or electricity type competition situation.  Unfortunately BT still does not even begin to comprehend the meaning of the words "free market" or "competition"  But then so far as I can tell nor does Ofcom.  It only understands "out of touch" (aka "light touch")

Quote:

Well spotted Dave.  I am normally fully on top of all of BT's finest ripoffs but I must confess that even I missed this "wolf dressed up in sheep's clothing".

I did actually have 1571 on this line before BT were finally gracious enough to get round to enabling this prosperous rural Surrey exchange with 1900 lines, only 15 miles south of the M25 for broadband, at the start of June last year.  But I mainly only used 1571 to intercept calls when I was on the internet and my anwerphone took the calls if I was out (answered after fewer rings than BT 1571). 

I have now had 1571 disabled though as I couldn't get calls off it remotely when I was away, whereas I can with my digital answerphone.  And sometimes I would also manually turn off my digital answerphone so as to receive a "free" (part of the Network services ripoff) morning reminder alarm call.  I could still turn on my digital answer machine remotely by ringing 20 times in those circumstances but not if 1571 answered after 7 rings.

But if BT is quite as cunning as you say then surely they would have turned on 1571 by default and only provided a customer option to turn it off.  Or is this one instance where Kip Meek and his bros at Ofcom were actually awake and not out on the town for another slap up lunch (as they clearly must have been over the 6am to 8am peak period scam)?

What do you think BT's main motivation has been on the 6am to 8am change to peak period?  I can't believe its worth  much money in relation to the potential wrath incurred so I can only believe its a toe in the water to see if Ofcom or Parliament/Ministers try and stop them.  And as they haven't I bet BT will be back fairly soon for the far more lucrative extension in peak hours from 6pm to 8pm.  They will justify this on the basis that lots of shops are still open at this time.  And don't forget that doesn't just turn 5.5p for the call into 3p per minute but it also shoves up the 0870 rate from 3.75p per minute to 7.5p.

The whole telecoms business is built on making competition incomprehensible for the consumer like the whole 118 diretcory enquiries scam that our useless and incompetent friends at Ofcom agreed to (how can anyone be allowed to charge customers on other than a per number found basis).

To get proper competition we need all revenue share 08 and 09 calls abolished (and I do mean incuding 0800 which is a ripoff for those receiving the calls), a common set of peak and off peak hours for all telecoms cos, only one call price tariff band per foreign country (no mobile surcharge) and then just competition on these basic prices and line rental charges.  So far as I can tell BT has also invented the complex call charges situation to take some of the heat off competition in the line rental price?

Just my two penny worth.

Quote:

Dave,

Let me clarify.  All revenue sharing numbers should be banned regardless of the numeric prefix code.

It would however be useful to retain a freephone 0800 facility, providing that the companies receiving the calls only have to pay the usual geographic rate charged by their telecoms supplier and not a premium NGN rate (as is presently the case).

Quote:


That was the Ofcom argument with allowing a charging free for all (by connection, by length of call or a mixture of the two) on 118 directory services but you only have to look at the actual outcome to see that the actual competition should only have been on the cost per actual number looked up.  Allowing the directory enquiry companies to earn more money from their own inefficiency is just plain wrong.  The same principle as with 084x and 087x.

Perhaps there does have to be a different international rate for mobile compared to fixed line calls for each country but that other rate had better be as prominently stated as the fixed line calling rate.

Quote:

Dave,

In theory I agree with you and at the time of my Ofcom submission on NTS I was minded your way regarding 09 numbers.

But unless Ofcom/ICSTIS changes the current 09 payments system so that companies breaching TPS rules and operating from overseas cannot use them then in practice they seem to be a charter for organised crime.  And surely anyone who wants an adult service is going to get far better value for money looking for it on the internet?  I mean £90 per hour or whatever for a virtual voice sex service - its a bit pricey isn't it?  I know that £90 an hour for a lawyer's advice would of course be a bargain.

The problem here comes from the fact that the telephone bill payer can't set up a PIN code number that stops other members of his/her household dialling these 09 numbers without his/her permission.  The same thing applies to the scam internet diallers.  I have always managed to avoid these allegedly self installing and I bet that if you go into it the person who says yes to allowing them is nearly always some spotty faced teenage member of the household, who is not the billpayer.

So 09 numbers could be ok if there were strong controls that meant they only happened with the bill payers specific agreement and if there is also a 30 day delay in payment transfers from the uk TCP to the actual service provider, thus stopping the nuisance call prizeline scams operating from overseas.

Quote:


Juby,

For cheap 0870 calls www.3utelecom.co.uk are the people who you need to register with.  They only charge 2p per minute - in the weekday peak - it just makes another indirect prefix number available on your line, that you can dial for these numbers.

They somehow seem to have found a way to do it from their German base by no doubt routing over voip and then back through conventional telephony from a country somewhere in the world where uk 0870 numbers aren't split out for charging separately from other uk numbers.