I agree for 0870 numbers but not 0845 numbers as there is no or very very little revenue .

jasonfields007 wrote on Oct 19^th, 2006 at 11:17am:


Jason,

Thank you for re-entering the debate although given that you are 19 years old and have alteady set up a website dedicated to selling these numbers I would still classify you as a salesman/entrepeneur in addition to being a web developer.  Clearly you set up the site as a business to make money and every time someone buys an 0845 number you make money in some way either through a cut of the calls or fees for the number or due to click thru banner ads on your website.

You mention Ofcom but they had every chance to impose a simple solution by returning both 0845 and 0870 calls to national rate in the short term and also setting up 03 non revenue share NGNs and announcing that in the fullness of time in a couple of years all 084/7 numbers would cease (allowing time for literature to be changed etc) and that people must either move to 03 with all the routing features and no revenue share or to 09 where the caller realises it is premium rate and queuing is banned and there are no call price announcements.

Ofcom in some of their own technical papers have described 084/7 as Uncontrolled Premium Rate and that is what they in fact are.  The whole reason 0845 calls can't be included in geographic packages and haven't fallen in price like 01/02 numbers is precisely because of the revenue share.  Ofcom used the pathetic excuse that it would be damaging to the business of 0845 dialup providers to make them move to 0844 or a low cost 09 number but by the time we get to Jan 2008 there will hardly be any dialup internet use left and most remaining 0845 dial up ISPs are changing to 0844 anyway.

Unfortunately Ofcom have been penetrated by far too many cronies from the telcos and so are failing in their duties under the Communications Act 2003 to protect the best interests of Citizen Consumers.

Most of the people who have 0845 numbers are charities and local authorities and government helplines which leaves it all the more shocking that they will  be left excluded from 01/02 call packages but 0870 numbers will not be excluded.  And ever since voip numbers have come in you could have been selling voip NGNs on normal local codes like the ones available at www.sipgate.co.uk with all of the call routing features of 0845 at no extra cost to the caller or the business using them.

jasonfields007 wrote on Oct 19^th, 2006 at 10:39am:

I have copied this quote from another post. The original post has been edited out, but I believe that the above sums the reason 084/087 numbers are so wrong.

Not because we don't like the fact that they are non-geographical and we can't see where the call's going. But because the statement is completely devoid of logic.

You say that you "don't choose the prices that 0845 numbers are to call." But if prices were to come down you would have less revenue, hence the reason for stopping connecting 0870 numbers. Or perhaps you know of a way of having your cake and eating it.

Therefore, I deduce that if you could choose, you would leave the charges as they are. Is this a fair evaluation of your views?

Quote:

This statement makes it clear that your relationship is with the service provider and that the charges to their customer are of no interest. Indeed, your "lo-call" marketing spiel says it all. You cling to the pipedream that 0845 is charged at local rate.

My understanding of 0845 is as follows (for 0870 substitute "national rate" for "local rate"):

It was previously 0345 (BT) and 0645 (Mercury, now C&W). Charges were the same as a local rate call on a BT package. Other providers like yours were allowed into the market by forcing BT to pass most of call charges on to them. BT retained enough to cover its costs of connecting the call.

Algebraically, this can be represented as follows:

c = b + x

where:
c is the cost of the call
b is the amount BT retain for connecting the call across its network
x is the amount that is paid to providers such as yourself

As prices for geographical calls have fallen, c, the price for 0845/0870 calls has not. To claim that 0845 is local rate is completely misleading as the framework for the numbers does not allow c to equal the cost of a local call because the NGN provider requires x.

If the originating telco were to lower the price they charge, then they would be making a loss. So the issue here is that these numbers are anti-competitive! They are therefore premium numbers because of the revenue or micro-payment, x, on top of the cost of transferring the call across the telephone network, which is represented by b.

If a company wants advanced routing, call statistics and all the other things that NTS provides, then they should pay for them. That allows for competition to drive prices down, rather than forcing Joe Public to pay, on a per minute basis, a pretty much fixed price for these services.

This is my understanding having read Ofcom's consultation documents. Is this a fair explanation of how things work?

Interestingly, jasonfields007 was online on 24 October ar 10:51, but has not responded. It reminds me of the proprietor of Phoenix Travel, who would not publish the geographical number for her company and who visited the forums for upto a month after she last posted.