From Oct 2006 NTL are increasing the cost of calls to 0845/0870 numbers


The New rates are:  Daytime Evening Weekend  
                      0845     5p         4p        3p
                      0870     10p       8p         6p

 
Existing  rates: Daytime  Evening Weekend
        0845        4.50        2.25      1.25
        0870        7.99        3.85       2.99
                       
http://www.home.ntl.com/page/phonepricechange

They are also introducing a new flat rate phone charge to UK landlines for calls outside of our “unlimited” tariffs. From then, for such calls you’ll pay 3p per minute no matter what time of day you call – this includes cable-to-cable calls.

Connection charges of 6p a chargeable call remain unchanged.

They do not have to justify it. Ofcom's latest advertisement simply tells us that this is all part of their improved world of telecoms where we have the choice.
Why on earth did this country go for duplicated plant? Rather than pressing BT to make better use of fibre. We might then have better broadband.

5p/min to phone NTL Customer Services. 

Dave wrote on Sep 11^th, 2006 at 8:29am:
10p/min to ring an 0870^*.

I wonder if they've increased 0871 but just 'forgotten' to mention it?


^* Don't forget the 6p connection fee 

Heinz wrote on Sep 10^th, 2006 at 7:34pm:


My understanding is that BT will not be charging a setup fee or rounding by the minute for 0845 and 0870 calls.  Its only 01 and 02 calls this is happening with?

If the setup fee is also to be applied to 0845 and 0870 calls then someone at Ofcom needs shooting (only methaphorically speaking of course as a figure of speech in case the pedantic Ofcom Communications Director happens to be reading this) very urgently.

Quote:

The call setup fee will apply to all calls but whole minute charging will only apply to calls to 01/02 UK landlines, calls to UK mobiles and international calls. The terms and conditions leaflet Heinz refers to says that whole minute charging also applies to premium rate and 0845/0870 NTS calls. This will not be the case, as Ben Verwaayen, BT's chief executive has confirmed.

How can such a mistake happen when these changes are all in the cause of simplifying the pricing? If the people at BT cannot understand what is what with regards billing, then how is Joe Public supposed to be aware? 

Dave wrote on Sep 13^th, 2006 at 5:49pm:


All of Ofcom's so called efforts to introduce greater competition have introduced greater complexity which makes the consumer unable to compare prices.  One could therefore be forgiven with confusing Ofcom with a trade association for whom the main job is making it easier for its members to earn larger profits.

First it was 118 directory enquiries where customers can be charged for connection and/or per minute and where the dq service is allowed to offer to put you through at exorbitant rates per minute without telling you that this is what is going to happen.

Then it was Line Rental where BT were allowed to make it compulsory for customers who only want to rent the line from it and make all their calls with other phone companies or via Voip to have to pay for a BT call discount scheme called Option 1 they do not use.  This increased the cost of their line rental by 50%.

Now Ofcom allows simple pence per minute pricing billed by the second only introduced by BT a few years back to be replace with old style prices rounded up by the minute and with the further confusion of a connection charge rather than the much easier to understand minimum charge.

When you look at who has been Ofcom's CEO and the quite outrageously anti consumer steps it has taken over the last three years you have to conclude that it is actually Ofcom which is the problem and you have to question exactly why such a commercially minded person  as Stephen Carter was put in charge of it.

Dave wrote on Sep 13^th, 2006 at 6:16pm:


I think its more a case of a spineless regulator that is actually complicit in the scams rather than in creating a regulatory environment in which straightforward price competitition will flourish.

It makes you wonder why the petrol industry has never thought of trying to lower headline prices at the pumps by 10p per litre but subject to a basic £5 per tank fill up fee.  Could it be perhaps because the petrol industry is regulated by the zealous OFT and Competition Commission who unlike Ofcom would come down like a ton of bricks upon such behaviour and suggest that such distorted pricing was grossly unfair to the low mileage driver and customers of car hire rental companies only needing to put a few litres back in the tank before they returned the car.

It is an established principle in Economics that the free market only operates properly if there are perfect supplies of information equally available to and readily understood by all consumers.  All these attempts to introduce more complex and impossible to compare pricing into telephone calls are ways to ensure the customer does not undertand pricing properly and so cannot make proper or accurate choices between suppliers.  The fact that the cost of a one minute call to an 0870 number with BT is going up by nearly 50% from 7.51p per minute to 10.51p per minute just leaves speechless with fury and disbelief.

I believe that if the CEO of Ofcom had been someone other than Stephen Carter then it would behaved quite differently as a regulator.  Hopefully his successor may actually have consumer protection at the core of his regulatory agenda.