Assuming all this becomes the final proposal . . .

I presume it would be the call originating telephone carrier who has to make the call charge announcement, if the call cost is different on 0870 from normal geographic calls, so that the caller has the option to discontinue the call before it is connected.

If this is the case then a lot depends on which way BT would go (either call cost announcement or no difference from geographic call costs) as many of the CPS companies would probably follow their lead.

I would have though that it is in BT's interest to get to a state where they can include 0870 in their inclusive call packages as they will then sell this package to more consumers (at least to those who don't know about or don't want to change to other carriers). So that would mean no call cost announcement on 0870 and no call cost difference for BT customers.

In time, of course, all the companies will switch to 0871 and 0844.

I don't think any present users of 0870 will switch to 0845 - much better, from their point of view, to switch to 0844 to get the constant revenue rate 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

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Dorf,

Forgive me if I have missed something glaringly obvious but don't 1899 and 18866 make call price announcements for all the destinations they carry calls to and don't those destinations include 0845 and 0870?

So if two call companies operating on almost no pofit margin at all can afford to make these announcements, and know what the call price is when they make the announcement, then why can't the rest of the call carrying companies?

All that is required is for these companies to assess what price they need to charge in order to consisently make a profit when carrying calls to 084x and 087x numbers and charge a price that ensures this will happen.  Of course this may well be by why 18866 needs to charge 9p per minute instead of 7.5p per minute for carrying a call to an 0870 number  It may also be why 18866 doesn't carry calls at all to 0844 and 0871 numbers.

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But of course the charging announcement should be turned on by default unless the account owner specifially chooses to turn it off using the PIN number that BT will I hope require to be used to do this.

This same PIN number could be used to turn on access to 09 calls costing more than 19p per minute and in this case the default should be that access is turned off.  Although of course some of BT's call prices for international calls (especially international mobiles) are so alarmingly high that its hard to know just what should be turned on and what should be turned off by default.

One alarming aspect of the whole 07/08/09 NGN revenue share game is that it is bound to hinder progress to true Voip calling identities in place of phone numbers, because making such a move might mean loss of revenue for the company currently using an NGN service.  As I said call centres are going to be the last people in the uk to implement voip calling identies instead of phone numbers.

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Dorf this seems to be Ofcom and the Telcos problem to sort out and not ours.  The Telcos have special privileged access to Ofcom at the NTS focus groups which the rest of us do not enjoy.  Therefore I am sure that they can thrash this out there and come up with a solution.  Since Ofcom have proposed this solution, based on talks with the telcos, the solution must surely be capable of being implemented.  I would have thought a database could be set up that would hold the relevant information for the telcos.

I believe that how the call is routed is irrelevant as it is where it terminated and the amount charged by the terminating call party that determines the price.  Surely so long as a database exists that indicates who is the terminating call party for any specific 0870 number then it is easy to determine the call cost before the number is dialled.

British Gas do not know how much it is going to cost them to buy gas every day of the week but their occasionally revised customer tariff charges a price adequate to let them make a profit regardless of daily fluctuations in wholesale gas prices.  Similarly under the new arrangements your telco will not charge you a different price to an 0870 number every day of the week depending how it routes.  They will instead charge a price that lets them make a profit with all calls to that terminating call party and on some days they will make more profit out of what you are paying them and on some days less.

But of course it is too complicated.  The simple solution was make all 0870 and 0845 calls priced at geographic rates, except for legacy 0845 ISP numbers that would be charged at the old BT standard rates (no new dialup ISPs could set up on these old 0845 numbers).  And then 0871 and 0844 would become a another 09 prefixed set of numbers regulated by ICSTIS.  All ICSTIS regulated numbers would then have price announcements in place in this consumer centric solution.

Ofcom's solution seems to deliberately rely on making things so complicated that the public won't understand it all and so the lie will be able to continue that 0870 numbers are supposedly ordinary national rate calls, even though many will not be.  Surely you can see that the whole point of the new arrangements is precisely so that Jo Public will find it all too difficult to cope with.  Whilst at the same time good old Ofcom will have been seen to have done something.

Looks like no reversion of 0870 to national rate then and instead just settling for some call price announcements.  Then they could also have call price announcements on 0845 too and they wouldn't end up making 0845 being more expensive than many 0870 numbers which really would be a public relations disaster on Ofcom's part.

But actually it would be possible for the Telcos to know what the price is going to be in advance for 0870 numbers.  How else do you think different rates are charged on different 0844 numbers and different 0871 numbers, all of which begin with the same code.  The only reason that many of BT's competitors charge more than BT for 0870 calls is because Ofcom changed the rules a while ago to let BT charge its competitors more for terminating an 0870 call than it charges itself (Ofcom called this competition!).

When you dial an 0870 number the billing platform of your service provider knows in a trice how and to where it is going to be routed and there is time to give you a call price announcement before your call is connected.

The one problem area with call price announcements are automated switchboards that answer the call straight away and have no ringing time.  With many of these numbers 18866 and 1899 don't manage to give you a call price announcement before the number answers.  But as most of these switchboards are 0870 numbers I of course never use 18866 to call them and indeed these days I hardly call any 0870 numbers.

Although I am thinking of trying to see if I can win the TalkTalk £500 challenge by making £5 worth of calls in a month to just 0870 and 0845 numbers and routing all my other calls with 18866.  That should leave me with a TalkTalk monthly bill where BT would be cheaper and so I would win the challenge!!

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Well, that has made my day. Away to dream happily of a properly regulated world   

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The current Talk Talk conditions seem to be different from the ones your quote.  Clause 4.8 says only "Any customer who receives their Services from any third party operating under license from Talk Talk is excluded from the TalkTalk £1,000 Challenge (also known as the £1,000 Guarantee).  Any calls made using International Access are excludes from the TalkTalk £1,000 Challenge.  Customers of our indirect access services (whether under the "Talk Now" brand or otherwise) are not able to make or receive Eligibile Calls and are therefore excluded from participating in Free Calls"

I can find no other reference to rules governing the £1,000 challenge in TalkTalk's current Terms and Conditions.