Bad news about the Post Office Home Phone I'm afraid.

I needed to call a Swiss mobile yesterday for which the cheapest method was a dial through service like PhoneBird or CleverRates but when I tried to use both these services yesterday on the Post Office HomePhone the unobtainable tone was presented after calling the number.  But when I then added the 1280 BT breakout code the call was accepted and I got through to the service.

I tried calling P O HomePhone customer service and the first very cocksure and "you customers are always wrong" type bloke told me I was mistaken and they didn't block calls to any number.  I then spoke to a supervisor who said they would have to log a fault but also seemed sure that what I was telling her could not be possible.  She then said they might need to visit my home and did I have any dangerous pets like large dogs etc I should tell them about.  I said no I didn't keep any savage lions or large rhinocerouses in my home but couldn't see why they needed to visit it to fix a fault on their network and that even legally paranoid BT did not ask such absurd questions to make a home visit.  She then said would I undertake to pay them if the fault turned out to be with my wiring.  I said the fault could not be with my wiring for this issue and was with their network so I refused to pay.  She then said she could not progress my fault.  I then lost my temper and accused her of being an utterly robotic call centre worker following the script at which point the line went dead.....................

I called back and spoke to another PO HomePhone adviser who did not seem to understand how the uk phone network operates and again said what I claimed was not possible and they did not block certain numbers.  I insisted on logging a fault and he then said I would have to call back to find out what was happening.  I said this was an outrage and asked to speak to his supervisor but he maintained there was no supervisor in the building so I asked how I had just spoken to a stupid one who had cut me off 5 minutes earlier and should I send an email to Alan Leighton or other members of the RoyalMail group board to ask why he had refused to put me through to a supervisor (I already had his name and extension at this point).  Surprise, surprise he then relented and put me through to a supervisor.  This supervisor had a brain and understood exactly what I was talking about but when I said that I could dial the number using 1280 she suggested I might be committing fraud.  I said I was not if she examined their terms and conditions and bearing in mind that they were blocking direct dialling methods to this number at which point she apologised and assured me the faults department would call me back within 48 hours.  30 hours later now and so far no call.....................................

So it would seem someone at the PostOffice HomePhone marketing department is now stopping averagely dumb customers from using dialthrough services that they just see in the newspapers but are not blocking the prefix customers from using those services as they know they are more awkaward cusses who might kick up a fuss and go the press etc.

What I want to know though is when I dial 1280 before an 0871 number where is that call going to be billed?  I would suspect on my PostOffice HomePhone bill but at BT rates???????????????????

Red Dave wrote on Apr 14^th, 2006 at 8:23am:


I am about to install my Sipura SPA 3000 Voip ATA my sister is giving me as a birthday present and then I will make most calls with voipcheap using voip so in general the Post Office's attempts to block calls will be irrelevant as they do not control my broadband connection with Freedom2Surf.

Of course conventional dialthrough services are still the cheapest way to call some overseas mobile numbers and uk mobile phones though so not being able to use them would be annoying.  I will be interested to see what happens to those Swiss mobile calls I dialled using the 1280 prefix in terms of billing.

NGM
Before you set up with voipcheap, can I suggest you look at http://www.myvoipprovider.com/VoIP_Research/VoIP_Providers/How_to_make_free_VoIP...
This site makes the comparison of the various voip companies to see who offers what. Voipcheap is listed as offering 27 free landlines, but voipstunt offer 37.
That particular site needs updating, but it would be worthwhile doing a self comparison by making a list of where you need and then seeing who offers it. Although both do offer UK land for free. (I assume that one is important!)

Post Office Homephone faults did finally call me back two days later on Friday afternoon just as I was off to see relatives for three days.  So they then had to call back yesterday (Tuesday) when I would be at home to do some "Tests".

The girl who called on Tuesday was as thick as two short planks or possibly more and suggested I needed to make various test calls to various numbers using the prefix 1280 for each one so Cable & Wireless's (their underlying call routing supplier for all calls apparently on PostOffice HomePhone) engineers could trace where the calls were going.  They suggested the speaking clock on 123 prefixed by 1280 and various other numbers that would run up my phone bill.  I said what was the point of this as I knew calls made using the 1280 prefix all connected.  The girl then said she was only following procedure.  I said she clearly didn't understand how telecoms networks operated and could I speak to another supervisor.

I was then put through to a chap who when I queried hom on his background said he was "a droput from one of the major professions" viz I suppose, doctor, lawyer or schoolteacher (the latter probably being more likely).  He totally understood my issue and asked me to confirm if I had the same trouble with the CleverRates 0871 number prefixing it with 132 which is the override code for Cable & Wirless.  Surprise, surprise the number was again unobtainable.  He then tried to escalate the matter further to other engineers who said they would unblock the block on calling these numbers but then found they could not.........

I then did some Google searches and found the name of Ric Francis the Post Office's Operations Director and emailed him with the problem.

I have so far had the below holding reply.  The saga continues.......................................................................
...........

-----Original Message-----
From: beverley.a.hodis@postoffice.co.uk
[mailto:beverley.a.hodis@postoffice.co.uk]On Behalf Of
ric.francis@postoffice.co.uk
Sent: 19 April 2006 15:52
Subject: Re: Some 0871 Numbers Barred by Cable & Wireless on Post Office
HomePhone

Thank you very much for your email.

I have been out of the office for the past week and am currently having
someone look into this.

My aim is to get back you with a response early next week.

Kind regards,

Ric Francis
Executive Director, Operations
Post Office Ltd

int:  5400 7407
tel:  020 7320 7407
email :     ric.francis@postoffice.co.uk

cowman wrote on Apr 24^th, 2006 at 9:19am:


I still await any further follow up email from Mr Francis at The Post Office or from Ofcom's WLR expert who was also looking into the matter for me.

I assume I will only know how the 1280 calls are billed when I get my Post Office phone bill with them on.  I would imagine they will be charged at BT's residential rate for calling these numbers which is the same for either BT Together or BT Standard line rental customers.

However I have found that www.ratebuster.co.uk has dial through numbers which have not currently been barred by the Post Office/Cable & Wireless.  I wonder who exactly is the underlying call supplier for Ratebuster and whether it is now TalkTalk who took over Centrica who formerly owned Ratebuster?

I wonder if TalkTalk is also barring use of services like www.phonebird.co.uk or www.cleverrates.co.uk for their WLR line rental customers?  Perhaps one of you who is one of their WLr customers can test this and let me know.

Also does TalkTalk allow its customers to make calls via www.ratebuster.co.uk?

I have now received this reply from Ric Francis, Operations Director at the Post Office.

He blames my not being able to call many dialthrough numbers for companies like Callax (Abroadtel etc)  & Finarea (Dialaround, BestMinutes etc) not forming access agreements with Cable & Wireless but I feel perfectly sure that Cable & Wireless have no incentive to form the access agreement because these cheaper call services lose them money.  Whereas BT having Significant Market Power will have a regulatory obligation to form access agreements with any company that wants to connect with their customers.

What is most disgraceful is that Post Office/Cable & Wireless merely play an unobtainable tone when you dial one of these perfectly valid numbers when they could at least play a message saying they do not have an interconnect agreement with this telecoms company.  At the moment you can get round this problem by dialling the 1280 override code to route the call with BT although I will be interested to see at what rate they are charged on my Post Office HomePhone bill given that the PostOffice does not quote a rate for these numbers in its call price guide but BT have no bill to charge them to me on.  Thus clearly BT will pass these calls back to the PostOffice for billing.  And for how much longer will we have accces to 1280 with Post Office HomePhone.

Seems to me that Wholesale Line Rental is only Fit For Purpose for the needs of telecoms operators but not of telecoms consumers since it does not offer a service that is equivalent to the one supplied by BT.

-----Original Message-----
From: ric.francis@postoffice.co.uk [mailto:ric.francis@postoffice.co.uk]
Sent: 03 May 2006 09:47
Subject: RE: Some 0871 Numbers Barred by Cable & Wireless on Post Office
HomePhone

Thank you for contacting me regarding the recent experience that you had
with Post Office HomePhone. Firstly, please accept my apologies for the
delay in responding, but as I am sure you are aware, the question that you
asked was a technical one and one that we had not come across before, so I
was keen to ensure that the team (and our partners) reviewed the background
to your question thoroughly.

Having now looked in to the details, we believe that the problem you
encountered is a general issue within the industry - and not specific to
Post Office HomePhone.

I say that because I can assure you that there is no policy within either
the Post Office or our carrier, Cable and Wireless, to explicitly bar or
restrict access to certain number ranges for commercial reasons.  The only
exception to this would be for the purposes of fraud protection agreed at
an industry level, and these would generally also be restricted by other
carriers such as BT... but this is not relevant to this case in point.

We believe that the issues that you are experiencing are due to the
carriers that own the number ranges that you are trying to call, failing to
make arrangements with carriers other than BT (i.e. Cable & Wireless in our
case) to carry calls to those number ranges.

As you may be aware, the current industry process is for the carrier that
owns the range to contact, and agree, the routing and commercial details
with other carriers. For example, for the range '0871 858', Cable &
Wireless has not received a numbering notification from the carrier
responsible for the number range (Callfax) and in this case, the only other
carrier that we are aware of that Callfax has an agreement with is BT -
hence your ability to route calls over the BT network. Cable & Wireless's
numbering team have confirmed that as of now, they still have not been
contacted by Callfax regarding this number range. They are however checking
their records further to ascertain if there has been any other
correspondence with Callfax relating to this matter.

Cable & Wireless are now also looking into the other number ranges in your
e-mail dated 29th April and we will respond to you further once we
understand the issue with these number ranges.

Continued In Next Post/..............

Quote:


It will be on your BT bill with your line rental - I dial an 0844 number for my in laws in Spain and have to reroute to BT using the 1280 number as Tesco don't recognise them.