Barbara wrote on Oct 29
th, 2007 at 7:01pm:
Oddly, when I asked about 03 numbers, she said they could not use them as they would have to pay to receive calls but was unable to give me any source for this statement, other than the head of Customer Care's briefing and that it had "all been investigated at director level.
This is potentially true.
I use the word potentially because it's possible that a teleco may charge a very high monthly line rental and in return offer a limited number of minutes free (ie National Trust don't pay for any incoming calls for the first x minutes per month).
However, in most cases (if not all) I do believe that an incoming call charge will be payable for anyone receiving calls on an 03x number.
The reason for this is because these 03x numbers (like 08x) offer facilities like call routing, call queueing, stats, interactive voice prompts, etc. These facilities (even basic call routing to an ordinary geographical 01/02 number) has to be paid for somehow and the money made by teleco's for calls to 03x is very little (if at all) so a charge is likely to be levied for calls National Trust (in this example) receive on an 03x.
0844 (well most), 0845, 087x numbers are charged more than 01/02 and 03x numbers and the extra money made may mean that facilities such as call routing is free simply because the extra cost it costs us consumers for the call pays for it.
This all varies depending on the supplier (teleco) that the 03x number is rented from. For example, some 0845 suppliers actually charge for incoming calls received whereas some don't charge for incoming calls received.
Barbara wrote on Oct 29
th, 2007 at 7:01pm:
I pointed out that most if not all advatanges were available on a geo no.
That is true however this comes at a cost. Things like
PBX's, PBX maintenance, etc can cost a lot of money.