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OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION (Read 387,372 times)
bbb_uk
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #75 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 2:37pm
 
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...Of course, of dial-up internet had been given its own separate prefix, then this wouldn't have been an issue. Instead, they preferred to sell such services as being at "local rate".
As always, Oftel (now Ofcom) didn't think to use a special number for dial-up users.

Having scanned the 200+ page (haven't read whole document yet) I can see where Ofcom are coming from with regards to dial-up users and 0845 but I believe they have totally over estimated the costs in migrating over to a 0844 number.  99% of ISP's offer email facilities as well as internet access and therefore they could easily email their customers (most customers would then be informed) and this wouldn't cost that much at all - just the time it takes to write the email because surely they have ways of emailing all customers anyhow.  ISP's have no problems e-mailing when they are doing deals/offers, upgrades, etc.

Most customers would be using Windows so therefore they could write a script that would simply add/change the dial-up properties (after closing down any software protection they run to ensure their dial-up number isn't changed to a premium rate number) and manual instructions could also be included in the email.

I definitely don't agree that ISP would need to burn a whole new set of their ISP discs and send them out to existing customers simply because of a number change.  I believe it would be OTT and not necessary.  All new customers would of course need their ISP disc to be with the new number instead of the old one.

Any ISP customers that have doubts could ring their ISP (probably on an 0870 number) to confirm this.

The problem is there would be a very small percentage of customers that don't read their emails so would not know about the change until they tried to dial-up.

I believe a period of 3months (to 6max) is all that is needed to ensure as many customers as possible were informed and to allow the ISP's to use the rest of their discs.  In the meantime CD's sent out could have a small note stating number has changed and how to change it.
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bbb_uk
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #76 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 2:54pm
 
Most companies claim they don't use the NGN's because of the revenue sharing but because of the features it brings.

Most of these features can still be used on an ordinary geographical anyhow.  I believe the other main reason would be if they were to move premises, etc and therefore a geo number would probably have to be changed but just how often do business move addresses and outside their old area?  This wouldn't be a problem on a NGN.

Anyhow, if Ofcom does finally abolish revenue sharing (and therefore the cost should then drop down and be classed as a geographical) then we'll see just how many of these companies then move to either a 0871 (not likely due to strict ICSTIS rules) but the likely choice then is an 0844 costing the maximum 5ppm.

Obviously any company migrating their number to either 0871/0844 was in it just for the revenue sharing but those that don't move and stay on their NGN but without revenue sharing are either using the NGN for the benefits it has and wasn't bothered about the revenue sharing or is likely to have given up the revenue to save the costs of migrating to the 0844 range.

No matter what option Ofcom choose I believe they should make it compulsory that all NGN's numbers published (whether its on the internet, leaflet, TV, radio, etc) have a cost indication next to it that reads something like, "calls cost upto 5ppm from a BT landline, costs from other networks vary. Mobiles cost upto 40ppm."  This, I believe, would ensure everyone is aware that costs to NGN's from mobiles are so high.

Of course, the telco's should all have to indicate the price to 0845/0870/0871 with their geographical prices as well (on the same page).  Other 0844 and premium rate can be on a different page but accessible via a link from the main tariff page.   The teleco's should also make it clear that calls to NGN's aren't included.

Now as for the tariff notification/announements at the beginning of the call, Ofcom claim customers would be annoyed with this feature which I believe could be true BUT call operators like Call18866/1899 use this call notification/announcement on their calls which must surely mean that it can't be that expensive to get started as I can't see Call18866/1899 having the money to do this and just like Call18866/1899 the customers can choose to have the call cost notification/announcement off or on.  I believe it should be on by default for NGN calls and if the customer chooses to turn this off then that's fine.
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« Last Edit: Oct 15th, 2005 at 3:00pm by bbb_uk »  
 
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #77 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 4:37pm
 
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As always, Oftel (now Ofcom) didn't think to use a special number for dial-up users.

So why do schools' dial-up internet services have the prefix 0820? Some of these 0820 numbers date back to 1998.
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #78 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 4:58pm
 
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So why do schools' dial-up internet services have the prefix 0820? Some of these 0820 numbers date back to 1998.
I suspect this was an after thought by Oftel(Ofcom) that they should have thought of beforehand.  I believe 0820 are cheaper or something and specially for schools, etc but before this they were using ordinary numbers like us joe bloggs were.

Didn't realise the numbers went that far back though.  I can't see many (if any) schools still on dial-up now though!
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NonGeographicalMan
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #79 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 5:36pm
 
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I can't see many (if any) schools still on dial-up now though!


There are 297 uk phone exchanges which do not currently have broadband and 101 of these have no hope of getting broadband at the present time.

One of these in Forest Green, Surrey is only 2 miles away from me here.

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/regions.php
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« Last Edit: Oct 15th, 2005 at 5:37pm by N/A »  
 
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #80 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 5:40pm
 
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There are 297 uk phone exchanges which do not currently have broadband and 101 of these have no hope of getting broadband at the present time.

One of these in Forest Green, Surrey is only 2 miles away from me here.
I didn't realise it was that many.  Those using dial-up are being ripped-off compared to broadband.  I take it BT are reluctant to upgrade their exchanges due to the costs involved and the unlikelyhood of a return in investment!
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #81 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 5:58pm
 
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There are 297 uk phone exchanges which do not currently have broadband and 101 of these have no hope of getting broadband at the present time.

These figures are all well and good.

However, I don't think that this really makes much of a point. I question how many and what percentage of subscribers' lines are within the distance that broadband will work? If it's a tiny minority, then that explains the figures and it would therefore be pointless to install broadband.

I know of an exchange a few miles from me which is having broadband fitted at the moment and will be working in November and serves (according to SamKnows) 188 residential premises and 38 non-residential premises. Currently 15 subscribers have registered their interest in having broadband.

In this area there are quite a few houses with microwave dishes on, which I presume are for a wireless broadband of some kind. I have been unable to find out what this service is, so if anyone knows, I would be interested to find out.

If this is for internet access, then it either it reduces the number of people interested in BT ADSL, making it even less worthwhile BT installing it.
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NonGeographicalMan
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #82 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 6:02pm
 
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I didn't realise it was that many.  Those using dial-up are being ripped-off compared to broadband.  I take it BT are reluctant to upgrade their exchanges due to the costs involved and the unlikelyhood of a return in investment!


BT were unwilling to upgrade 600 exchanges for this reason, mainly in the North of England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.  Most of thes have been paid for by the local regional development agencies but not in regions where there wasn't a general problem so no big subsidised scheme to address the issue.

196 of the 297 will be done by the end of the year but the 101 (including the one next to me) are being left out in the cold.  These 101 exchanges probaly only have an average 150 lines each.  So about 15,000 phone customers are involved.  The 196 have perhaps another 30,000 lines on them.

They could always use a provider like http://www.fast4.net in terms of price but its going to be very slow and they keep having to dial up.
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #83 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 6:07pm
 
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BT were unwilling to upgrade 600 exchanges for this reason, mainly in the North of England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.  Most of thes have been paid for by the local regional development agencies but not in regions where there wasn't a general problem so no big subsidised scheme to address the issue.
I assume NTL or Telewest don't cover these areas for possibly the same reasons?
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #84 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 6:12pm
 
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I assume NTL or Telewest don't cover these areas for possibly the same reasons?

And herein lies the problem. The likes of NTL and Telewest take the rich pickings and BT has to supply to everyone whilst still 'competing'!
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NonGeographicalMan
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #85 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 6:14pm
 
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However, I don't think that this really makes much of a point. I question how many and what percentage of subscribers' lines are within the distance that broadband will work? If it's a tiny minority, then that explains the figures and it would therefore be pointless to install broadband..


BT are greatly extending the limit at which you can get a 256k service and 512k broadband service on all exchanges.

On Forest Green exchange next to me in prosperous commuter Surrey and not far from the M25 the homes are all in range of the exchange but its just that BT doesn't want to pay the £50,000 upgrade fee itself for a new fibre optic cable to the exchange and the DSLAM as it only serves 230 lines.  But these 230 lines raise over £30,000 per year for BT in line rental, which I highly doubt they will use up in an engineer making perhaps 2 or 3 visits a month to the exchange.

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange.php?ecode=THFTG

BT set a cut off at 300 lines and its effects have been very arbitrary and unfair.  Yet exchanges in Scotland with only 50 lines are getting ADSL upgrades paid for by the Development Agencies.  Contrary to what you think on most exchanges 80 to 90% of lines are always within the distance limits as they always build the exchange in the main centre of population the exchange serves.  The exchanges considered unviable bt BT are largely small ones only served by a copper rather than a fibre optic trunk cable to the nearest big exchange.

These 12 exchanges in the South East of England have been classified by BT as unviable for broadband:-

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/regleague.php?status=2&region=10&direction=DES...

BT's trick is to force the County Council or anyone but them to pay up for the work.  Since as we know BT is such a poor company with almost no income. Roll Eyes
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NonGeographicalMan
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #86 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 6:34pm
 
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Most customers would be using Windows so therefore they could write a script that would simply add/change the dial-up properties (after closing down any software protection they run to ensure their dial-up number isn't changed to a premium rate number) and manual instructions could also be included in the email.


All of the stated reasons for why it is tricky to move customers away from ripoff £1.80 an hour (weekday peak) legacy 0845 dialup ISPs come under the heading of bamboozle, hogwash or flim-flam.

I used to have an 0800 and an 0845 dialup ISPs and they both changed the phone number a couple of times by sending an email and explaining how to do it in Dial Up Connection settings.  They sent an email address to the address you had to give to sign up................ Roll Eyes  As for all these CDs etc well there is only one major ISP that uses proprietary software for internet connection that requires this nonsense.  That service provider is AOL where Ofcom Communications Director Mr Matt Peacock used to work. Roll Eyes Shocked  And I am sure even they could find a way to change the dialup number via an online download.

In the time frames in fact envisaged by Ofcom for acting on 0870 (6 to 9 months to consult plus a year to implement) 0845 dialup internet will be near dead so Ofcom's claims that these call prices could not be slashed to geographic rates are really utter nonsense.  Anyone still on 0845 at that point shoudl be forcibly moved to an 0844 1p per minute service, an 0808 subscription service or to budget broadband for their own good.

Ofcom's game here is in fact to protect the business revenues of the telecoms companies against possible decrease.  The fact that this means millions of consumers paying more than they should for 0845 voice customer service calls for another year longer doesn't seem to concern Ofcom in the least. Shocked
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #87 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 6:34pm
 
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And herein lies the problem. The likes of NTL and Telewest take the rich pickings and BT has to supply to everyone whilst still 'competing'!
... and at the same time is limited in terms of how cheap it can be (if it wanted) because of fear of undercutting their rivals which they are pretty much prohibited from doing so.
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #88 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 6:46pm
 
I have continued this discussion about the coverage of broadband in Increasing the coverage of broadband.
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Re: OFCOM - FUTURE OF 0870 NUMBERS - CONSULTATION
Reply #89 - Oct 15th, 2005 at 6:54pm
 
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Ofcom on the other hand state that it still can't be done without great expense for the ISPs concerned.  To me it seems yet another excuse.


Yes bbb that is precisely it just another lame and deceitful OFTEL/Ofcom excuse for sitting on their fat and over paid arses in their air conditioned offices before heading out at lunch time for another pleasant little tete a tete at a smart restaurant with some telecoms industy former working chums of theirs.

If you had dealt with OFTEL and Ofcom for as long as I and Dorf have on this issue you would have to come realise that it is precisely because they are in bed with the telecoms companies that this outrageous scamming has been able to carry on in ever larger amounts for the last 8 years.  And because of this Ofcom are actually tryiing to procrastinate as long as they humanly can and they have now thought of another wheeze to keep 0845 call scamming going for at least another 2 to 3 years.

Not only does it keep the declining 0845 scamming going for a while longer but it also keeps the non declining 0845 voice call scamming to charities, the inland revenue etc going for as long as possible.  Quite brilliant really from Ofcom's own cynical point of view.
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