That's very interesting, Sonny.  Sounds like if we call it "micro payments" we can pretend that it isn't "revenue sharing".  Like you, however, they're the same thing in my opinion.

This sounds very similar to the consultation response made by a company called Flextel who on the one hand are saying all revenue sharing should be moved to the '09' range, but on the other hand that 08 numbers can be charged higher than geographic rates ?  Surely, higher charges for 08 calls is still revenue sharing ????

Could I ask you a take a brief look at my post #163 on the thread below as they might be examples of the same thing????

http://www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1129806310/150

Flextel may describe “Say No to 0870" as "an anarchic web site" (at the end of the last page), but at least we are a voice supporting the consumer against the interest of Ofcom and other large telecom providers - we do think outside the box and (in the end) the general consensus of opinion is sound.

Flextel make some very good, well argued, points and are critical of Ofcom’s  “Ineffectual micro-regulation” they advocate a free market with full price transparence - and who could argue with that.

Unfortunately a free market can not operate effectively when consumers have little or no effective choice when telephoning:
Government Departments such as the DVLA ,  UK Passport, VAT, Tax etc
Organisations with monopolistic or near monopolistic services
Doctor’s surgeries who start using NTS numbers.

An effective aid to price transparency is a pre announced massage as to the cost of a call, but this is of little comfort to a “locked in” consumer. It helps, but a simple price structure and the abolition of deliberate scams also helps.

All voice landline calls (mobile pricing is another problem and maybe a separate new section should be devoted to mobile pricing) should either be priced at the customer’s Normal Rate or, if not, then the call should be classed as a Premium Rate call, and placed in one identifiable category - the “09" section.  Either one or the other. It is the clandestine grey areas that cause the problem.

The Normal Rate (including Option 3 etc at 0p/min) should apply to ALL numbers that are not in the 09 premium range. If organisations or telecoms wish to have an extra slice of callers money they should flag this up clearly by placing the number in the 09 category.  What I object to is all the hybrid numbers (087x, 084x, 070 etc) that masquerade as normal, mobile, or so called , “local” or “national” cost numbers when they are nothing of the sort, and with the intent of deceiving the caller.

Ofcom have allowed this pricing mess to continue and have attempted to mask the failure by endless over complex consultations followed by ineffective action.

[This should have been posted in "Read the public's 807 comments to Ofcom here..."   KK]

gdh82 wrote on Dec 2^nd, 2005 at 9:54pm:

Perhaps I can help by making the difference between and a bit clearer...

Let look at the traditional financial model of the UK (and international) telecom network using BT as an example, in a typical 0870 call...

---

---

of course BTin could be replaced by any phone/mobile operator e.g. NTL or Vodafone
and BTout could be different from BTin.

So money flows from left to right, following the call...

£a is paid by Caller (monthly/quarterly bill).
£b is the money paid by BTin to the 0870 service provider, about 5p/min
£c is the money paid to BTout to pay for carrying the call to Caller about 1p
No money is given to Called.

So the NTS company is living off about 4p/min.

£b and £c are made in the telecoms network.
They are very efficient, because they are made in bulk monthly.
There is little credit risk, so collection costs are very low.
...for the economists amongst us!  

£b-£c is the margin needed to pay for the number translation services.
e.g. databases, switches (exchanges), software, webservers, optical fibre, it is not free!  

Here it comes...
Now add to the end user - Called.
To compete, then 0870sp MUST now pay the Called for every minute of answered time.
Imagine an additional arrow with £d money flowing directly from 0870sp to Called.

£d can be as high as 3p/min!

Clearly pushes up the cost of £b and hence £a.

Now the NTS guys get 5-1-3 = 1p/min (useing full-on revenue share as a bribe).

So it  generates a competitive driver in the market to push prices up,
in a competitive scramble to increase revenue share offered to
greedy end users or...
wait for it...
scammers! (bad people   with no investment, who dissappear into the night)

It starting to look like premium rate, in disguise  

But it gets worse...
If a market has poor price transparency, then consumers get ripped off, (as FleXtel points out).

Just look at the extreme mobile prices cited in it for 08 service! 60p/min!
No wonder the press and user perception is that 0870 is about 30p/min,
rather than about 8p on BT.

If the NTS guys only get 5p/min, what's happened to the other 55p/min!

Shouldn't we also be attacking the mobile operators...
...for their ripoff prices and tricky tariffs!  

If Price Transparency arrived I reckon Virgin would love it!
...and Vodafone would get a bllody nose!

So lets get brutal, let's kill 0870!
If £b-£c is too small then the translation work must be paid for by the Called party.
Ofcom wants £a to become very small, the same as for 01 & 02 geographic.
So £b will become tiny. Yep, that'll stop revenue share.  

Good one! ...but that means we're back to expensive BT's call diversion charges
(& mobiles too!) or Called pays the NTS operator a lot.
Why?...
Because you have to collect payment to pay for the NTS/Diversion  
and that is very, very, expensive  -> high collection risk, small bills!
...bad people can disappear without paying!
...BT's argument for retaining so much!  

Also we now have two small (high risk) bills per call, very inefficient for UK plc.
So if your a business or contractor or
you work from home or
work flexibly:home/office or
have a geographically dispersed service desk

you've now got to pay diversion costs.
So if diversion is active... when people call you, you pay!
if silent calls occur - you pay!
if double glazing sales people call - you pay!
if time wasters call (at very low cost - 4p for ever on 18866!) - you pay!

You can't divert to 18866 and
diverted calls aren't in your bundled minutes.
So you pay the standard rate and
you are trapped by your mobile/line operator.

OK, never mind, at least it's the end of all NTS service...
no free flexible intelligent numbers,
no dispersed service desk numbers,
no free advertising sales numbers.
no beating mobile roaming charges with a foreign SIM.

It'll be fine for big corporates using BT, with dedicated high quality VoIP connections,
but VoIP via ADSL is rough.
Fine for calling the kids/granny in Australia for free,
but not good enough if your trying to make a deal with a supplier/local bank etc.
- delay, gaps, distortion when big files block the net for a few secs.
SDSL to be no better, as, unlike 'expensive' telecoms, there is no quality criteria (GOS)
for the internet... You get what you pay for.

So that leaves many small, medium sized businesses and
international travellers with a bit of a problem.
Hey, they say, let's use premium rate instead, minimum caller cost just 10p?

Hang on, didn't we say NTS with revenue share was Premium rate in disguise?

So isn't this where we came in? ...hmmm must think about this  

NGM said:

Quote:


We do not need another class of numbers, keep it simple, just use an expanded 09 class, with costs starting at 1p/min and not the current 10p/min.

As I have said before:  All voice landline calls should either be priced at the customer’s Normal Rate or, IF NOT, then the call should be classed as a Premium Rate call, and placed in one identifiable category - the “09" section.  Either one or the other. It is the clandestine grey areas that cause the problem.

The Normal Rate (including Option 3 etc at 0p/min) should apply to ALL numbers that are not in the 09 premium range. If organisations or telecoms wish to have an extra slice of callers money, even 1p/min, they should flag this up clearly by placing the number in the 09 category.  What I object to is all the hybrid numbers (087x, 084x, 070 etc) that masquerade as normal, mobile, or so called , “local” or “national” cost numbers when they are nothing of the sort, and with the intent of deceiving the caller.

Quote:

I do think that this is an important point to bear in mind, or more to the point why this might be. I think that many people see Premium Rate = "Expensive Rate". Do they really understand why it's "expensive", and more to the point, do they realise that the called party receives a cut?

If it had been thought out, we could have had something like this, as an example:

• 091 1p to 10p (currently 0844 and 0871)
• 093 11p to 25p
• 095 26p to 75p
• 098 76p to £1.50

I do think that another term should be thought up, as 'premium rate' is not a rate as such, but a type of number. I am all for the 0844/0871-type numbers to be labelled 'low premium rate', or something similar.

Heinz wrote on Dec 5^th, 2005 at 1:17pm:


Where surnamex@parliament.uk (where x is their initial) is rejected by the Parliamentary email server call the House of Commons Switchboard on 020 7219 3000 and ask for their parliamentary secretary's name.  Then send an email to the secretary at surnamex@parliament.uk (where x is their initial) asking for it be drawn to your MPs attention.  All MPs are likely to give priority to reponding to email from their own constituents (i.e. they may not bother if you are not a constituent), although having said that there is one Conservative MP who is giving me a lot of assistance over this matter who is a signatory to the EDM but is not my own constituency MP (who has not yet signed the EDM).

Around 100+ MPs only have a Parliamentary email address in their secretary's name because if they have one in their own name it apparently receives an absolutely overwhelming amount of junk email (this includes my own MP for whom no parliamentary email address is listed).  You may also be able to email your MP via their local party constituency office.

Quote:


I really appreciate NonGeographicalMan's comments, and might I say he certainly seems to understand the issues well. I agree with him, BT call diversion service is a disgrace!

There are two problems that block enhancement...
1. The idea of the 1984 Telecom Act was that competition would drive innovation, not the Regulator. Legally, I don't think Oftel could, or Ofcom can, make BT innnovate, only open its markets to competition. Does anyone know the law here?

2. In the case of BT diversion, unlike NTS, calls goes to the BT local exchange and even the subscriber line (data record these day) so money has already been wasted routing the call nearly all the way to the copper pair. NTS does this much earlier and therefore should be much more efficient(cheaper)!

NTS should be seriously competing with diversion charges, right now! But, the greedy mobile operators are overcharging for it. 60p for an 8p call! Call Price Labelling would expose this to millions of ordinary consumers.

I live out in the sticks, so I can only get BT. When I am working away from home, I can't change my diversion and it's very expensive, so I use NTS for my small business. The calls never queue, I immediately answer them or they goes to my voicemail.  I then call my customers back. So they get better service from me. I guess if you kill NTS I will be stuck with BT again. I could use my mobile but the callers will pay more and they'll get a rubbish call when I'm poor coverage, which is often out here!

Should I move to London (or any city), increase overcrowding, road congestion and house prices, just  to get access to BT competitor services? There must be thousands of small and medium sized businesses in my situation. The only fixed line innovation we get out here is NTS, because BT still has nearly 80% of the market after 20 years! And BT wants NTS dead(Here) because it makes no money, it's losing market share here and it's a long term threat.

My feeling is that NTS has a place, but has been abused by Goverment Monopolies making the wrong service choice. Freephone, 0845, 0871 or 09x. So should the taxpayer pay or the caller?  What about that recent cockup by the tax office(Here)? It beggar's belief!

Most good NTS operators give customers powerful remote features such as:
instant diversion, meet me,  queuing , voice & fax mail via IVR, SMS text and/or the web, albeit at higher cost to the caller. This may help some small the UK compete better worldwide.

I hate call queuing, it's a waste of my time. I am not convinced it will go away if NTS is removed. In fact I think it will get worse, as it will all be funded by the taxpayer out of the Treasury budget.

So should NTS be killed, just because of a few incompetent government departments, making the wrong choice and because of crazy mobile prices?

I think we should be screaming for Price labelling now, just like Flextel! So all these cons can be exposed, before we pay(call). I don't want to find out I've been ripped-off 3 months later when my BT bill arrives, do you?

NGM - is there any chance of the report from the Workshop, that you have been promising for so long??

I seem to remember that it was BECAUSE you were involved as a poster on this site that you were invited to it by Ofcom (as OUR representative), surely courtesy to us members would suggest you might give back something.  If not it appears you just wish to use the site membership for your own ends, with no regard for others.

Please, no more procrastination - tell us honestly if and when a report will be forthcoming.