You can read the full press release here.

I'm pleased to say we're scrapping charges for calling all of our consumer services and helpdesk numbers. Ninety Two percent of calls to BT are already free and we'll increase this to 99% by April the 1st by changing our six most used numbers to 0800 or 0808. And we'll make the rest free in the months following that.

Gavin Patterson, BT managing director consumer, says: “BT has been setting the pace with its pricing and today we’ve decided to go a step further. We’ve always had some of the lowest prices for such calls and now we’ve decided to make them free. We call on the rest of the industry to follow our lead."

I hope that posting this directly is ok but we wanted to spread the good news.

Mark Wilkin - BT Support Forum Community Coordinator
www.bt.com/forums/

This is certainly good news; but before we allow the euphoria of the moment to intoxicate our memories to the point of virtual amnesia we ought to recall who it was that first commenced "revenue sharing" with NGNs?

dorf wrote on Feb 21^st, 2008 at 2:33pm:


Point taken!

Still, if everyone else followed them, let them follow BT now!

I don't see BT making any efforts to replace the ripoff 0845 4647 number that BT Global Service operates on behalf of NHS Direct and that rips off thousands of callers a week with though.  Seems like BT is still content to coin millions a week from originating and terminating 084/7 calls to numerous other 084/7 call centres.

They are also totally disingenous to claim they are the first major organisation to do this.

Plusnet introduced a geographic phone number for their technical support line some time ago and a number of smaller ISPs use geographic or 0800/0808 numbers for technical support and customer service.

What actual numbers is BT going to operate to provide these free calls.  I hope they aren't going to offer discriminatory free pricing to their own line rental customers for calling these particular 0845 and 0870 numbers, thus giving even more of a deliberately misleading impression that only BT offers the best deal on phone call costs.

gt94sss2 wrote on Feb 23^rd, 2008 at 7:25pm:


Your optimism on this seems misplaced given the fact that NHS Direct have gone all the way to the Information Tribunal and instructed top counsel there to try and prevent forum member Derrick and those other forum members who helped him with the case from succeeding in obtaining a geographic alternative number to 0845 4647.

The final verdict in that case is still awaited, even though the hearing has already taken place.  However given the intransigent attitude shown by NHS Direct even if they lose I would not be surprised to see them take the case on to the Court of Appeal to try to justify their continued misuse of 0845 4647.

gt94sss2 wrote on Mar 1^st, 2008 at 11:36am:


And when does it come to an end then?  2015? 

This contract is with BT Global.  If BT believes ripping the public off with 084/7 numbers is such a bad thing as the CEO of BT Retail is on record as saying then why does it not just immediately renegotiate the contract with NHS Direct free of penalty in order to start offering an 03 4647 number?

Me thinks the end of the contract stuff is just the same old lies as the "no new contracts to be entered into" with 0844 doctors surgeries.  If the arrangement is wrong then it needs to be changed now pronto and the NHS needs to pick up the cost of any such renegotiation, given that it is own ineptness that led to 084 numbers being used in the first place.  Meanwhile your cynical BT NTS and BT Retail division colleagues are deliberately trying to muddy the NTS waters by cutting the per minute cost of 0845 calls in the weekday daytime and also abolishing 5.5p per hour to geographic numbers in the weekday evening whilst raising the price of geographic 01/02 calls to 4p per minute on BT Option 1.  All part of a carefully rehearsed strategy to hang on to the 084 status quo.

Ofcom has been pretending to consult on 084/7 numbers for the last 4 years only to use the implausible get out that it did know about problems with price announcements on calls to burglar alarms at the last moment to indefinitely postpone returning 0870 calls to geographic rates.

What all these shysters are actually trying to do is to delay forever whilst giving the impression that they want to change to using normal geographic priced phone numbers.  

Clearly NHS Direct is taking the wrong approach. I suspect more people are likely to call the number during the weekend and evenings, when revenue is at its lowest for 0845 number. They obviously don't realise that they could rip more profit out of the unsuspecting public by using a constant 5ppm 0844 number (like the doctor's surgeries) or a 10ppm 0871 number, like all the other "help desks" out there.

Anyone note the hint of sarcasm in my reply?