This is my first attempt to contribute to an online forum so please bear with me if go off the rails.

Just want to make the point that a big additional disadvantage of 0870/0845 numbers is that they are not accessible from outside the UK. So when travelling abroad it is impossible to phone a UK business or public organization which has never published a geographical contact phone number. This is at best an absurd and unnecesssary inconvenience, and at worst a serious obstacle to international telecommunications

Thanks, Calas, for your post which got me thinking......why not ask for people's


...this could prove a simple way of gathering together the key issues for other newcomers and relative newbie's like me!  Good or bad idea, here's mine...

1. WAY overpriced (calling 0870 from a landline can be eight times more expensive)
2. NGNs are NOT included in inclusive call plans (where you've ALREADY PAID for unlimited calls!)
3. Companies are ridiculously reluctant to give out the geographic equivalent
4. Massively mis-advertised regarding cost of these calls
5. Certain companies are making a packet out of keeping us waiting on the phone!!!!!

gdh82 wrote on Nov 21^st, 2005 at 9:48pm:



With reference to your point 3:
Not all NGN numbers have a terminating POTS number. Some will terminate at a Switch and be forwarded over something like LAN or VoIP telephony. Therefore, in some cases, you can't have a geographic number if they don't have one at the back of their NTS number.

With reference to your point 4:
If all these companies made as much money as has been guessed, they would setup their own network and number ranges and take the whole amount from BT.

Quote:


Thanks bloggs for that.  I honestly didn't know that there sometimes isn't a geographic number that is being transferred to -I did admit above  to my newbie status .  In your opinion, what proportion of companies/organisations (roughly speaking) would you say this applies to ?

gdh82 wrote on Nov 21^st, 2005 at 9:59pm:


Sorry, but I have no idea. 

Does anyone else have any idea on this ?  Roughly speaking, how many companies do not have a geographic equivalent and are therefore justified in not providing one?  Is this the exception or is it more commonplace ?

Well, although they may have a point that 0870 numbers don't route to a geo equivilent, they are not justified in saying there isn't one.

If they use VOIP technology, they made a choice with their telco to use 0870, because it is cheaper for them.  It is possible to use VOIP on a geo number, but they chose not to, because 0870 will make them money, whereas geo will just route the call.

And if they're expecting calls from abroad, then once again if people cannot call from some networks, it leaves the company not receiving the call.

I had to call a company today, and using this site found their geo number.  The geo number listed went through to the wrong department, and was asked to call their 0845 number.  I explained that it's difficult to call these numbers from abroad (note that I didn't say I was abroad, just that it's difficult to call from abroad) and instead I was just passed through a few wrong departments before being connected, all for the cost of using my free minutes, but wasting a fair bit of staff time at the company I was calling.

If more people were prepared to waste time like this, then companies would discover it's cheaper to give out a geographic number and forgo the revenue share, than have their staff tied up by people calling the wrong number.