no5colin wrote on Jan 12
th, 2008 at 12:50pm:
The people running the line assure me their provider says it's possible. Is that true?
I agree with Dave here.
What your provider may mean is that it's possible to receive calls from abroad but at the end of the day it's up to the network used abroad as to whether they choose to allow calls from their own network.
The reason why it's possible that networks abroad may not allow calls to a UK 0870 (or any non-geographical number) is because of the cost to themselves (ie the foreign network) and Ofcom (the telecommunications regulator) have stated this.
Remember that because the cost of calling an 0870 is significantly higher than a geographical number (01 and 02), it's possible that networks may not allow calls, or if they do allow calls will charge significantly higher than they would normally do.
Even calling an 0870 from the UK is significantly more than calling a geographical number so imagine how much it costs foreign networks when you take into consideration the cost of routing the call via different providers and from one country to another!
This is why some companies and government departments have realised this and provide geographical numbers for those calling from abroad. A quick example is banks. Banks, on the back of their ATM cards, generally have a number to call when abroad and this number is a geographical number because that is the only type of numbers guaranteed to work from abroad.