Would agree that this does sound like a good idea, but would need to include a VERY brief example of what people could say to Ofcom (since all users will not necessarily be conversant with all the nitty gritty).

My view might be that many verbose members of this site would provide the technical 'bullets' in their submissions, the rest of us 'foot-soldiers' could then just put in short contributions showing our anger etc.

This sounds an excellent idea, especially in terms of getting people to express more concrete opposition to Ofcom's bankrupt proposals to keep 0845 as premium priced NGNs for several more years whilst 0870 at least half return to being charged as geographic numbers.  Also Ofcom's disingenous claims that it would be difficult for 0845 dial up ISPs to change the number used by customers need to be taken apart.

Also the failure to regulate 0844 under ICSTSIS when being used by companies like NEG for doctors surgery line scamming and failing to move both 0844 and 0871 to 09 where they belong.  Also failing to tackle 07 NGN PNS scamming as part of this consultation process.

Also that Ofcom is going to do absolutely nothing to stop mobile phone companies from ripping off their customers with a ridiculous high premium rate when calling 084 and 087 numbers.

At the moment a few rather ignorant members of the public are generally writing back well done Ofcom for doing something on 0870 knowing none of the shortfalls in the consultation document or that this is the third Ofcom consultation on this matter in 2 years after 2 previous abortive consultations.

Your comments on this topic Daniel would be very much appreciated.

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Just adding my support to the above suggestion.

Also, it appears to me that the one resource that could really make a different is the money saving expert site which has tens of thousands (or even greater magnitude) of readers. Although I rarely look at the site these days, the odd glance seems to indicate that the once prominent campaign by Mr Lewis against 0870 has all but disappeared. He is the one journalist who really could make a difference. I hope he has not been 'silenced' by his clients which I believe include the BBC! Anyway if anyone has a good relationship with Mr Lewis or his site, perhaps something could be done to promote the consultation and solicit responses. I believe he was, at one stage, a sponsor of this site, and possibly still is.

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MSE has recently published some new rules which forbid the use of links (apart from charities) in signatures. I had a link to Say no to 0870 and a link to the Ofcom Consultations thread over here. Both have been removed. I am very disappointed that a site that was supporting this site would remove those references. I received no PM explaining why, just a message on my MSE signature. 

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Dave,

I think the trick would be to force people to have to sign up to do a number search so they would have to provide a username and an email address to do so.

On the other hand realistically probably only those motivated to join the forum are those who would be motivated to send a response to the consultation.

Do you and Daniel ever talk on the phone?  I know you have never met in person unless things have changed on that front.

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What you say is correct.

The forum management has email addresses for every member so what they should do is to send an email to all of them encouraging a response to the Ofcom consultation.

Recently, Gdh82 and others gave us some excellent £data regarding 0870/0845.

Thinking some more about a mass mail-out and what we might send to our own email buddies, I also wanted some simple yet dramatic statistics to raise people's awareness of and concern for the 0870/0845 issue.  Here goes.

My data:

BT have over 20 million residential subscriber lines.
Subscribers pay £450 average annual call charges.
Over 30% of call charges are now on 0870/0845 calls, and the proportion has doubled in the past 1-1/2 years.
BT take at least 60% of the 0870/0845 revenue, call centres up to 40%.

Calculations:

While the call centres together rake in annually 20 million x £450 x 25% x 40% = £934 million, BT itself earns annually a cool 20 million x £450 x 25% x 60% = £2.335 billion, a large part of their operating profit.

Conclusions:

1   BT and call centres cannot do without this revenue stream.

2   Residential subscribers who replace 0870/0845 calls with free or low-cost geographical equivalents will save on average up to 30% x £450 = £150 annually.

3   OFCOM cannot prevent revenue sharing continuing somehow between BT and call centres.  All we can hope is that they will be forced to provide geographical equivalents.

Question:

Do you believe we can use statistics like these to promote our cause in some way?

Note:

While I'm happy to provide background data for these figures through the forum if asked, I should appreciate help on the revenue split (60% to 40%) between BT and call centres (and other intermediate providers!) where I feel less comfortable.