idb
|
By way of comparison, Stanaphone, a reliable VOIP provider here in the US that does route to UK NGNs, makes the following charges (per minute):
to UK - 2.5c to US - 2.6c
So, it is actually cheaper to call a UK (geographic) number than it is to call my next door neighbor. Good stuff.
Now, the cost to UK non-geographic numbers are
to UK (+448, +443, +444, +445) - 28.1c
So to make a simple call to my bank, to the DVLA, or to chat with a friend or relative at university will cost ten times that of a standard UK number.
Again, for comparison purposes, here is a sample of the places that I can call that are cheaper than a UK 0870, 0845 or, for that matter, a UK 0800 number:
Albania mobile - 26.9c Angola - 20.4c Australia mobile - 21c Azerbaijan mobile - 23.4c Bhutan - 22.4c Botswana mobile - 17c Cambodia - 25.5c Guatemala mobile - 16.1c India - 20.3c Iraq (Baghdad) - 23.9c Kazakhstan mobile - 19.3c Laos - 10.5c Madagascar - 26.7c Reunion - 15.6c Senegal - 21c Sudan - 24.6c Togo - 22.5c Yemen - 21.1c Zimbabwe mobile - 22.4c
Perhaps Hertfordshire Constabulary, Ofcom and all the other apologists for NGNs can understand why 0845, 0870 and the whole corrupt NGN system are of little financial use to those of us that live or travel overseas and have to conduct routing business with the United Kingdom.
The point of this comparison is to demonstrate the unsustainable nature of Ofcom's numbering plan and the consumer detriment of these numbers. I don't blame Stanaphone. It is only making these charges to recover its costs in dealing with all this revenue-generating nonsense.
|