SilentCallsVictim wrote on Feb 25
th, 2008 at 1:23pm:
NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 25
th, 2008 at 12:44pm:
... you can't beat TalkTalk's deal ...
If I did not know better, I would suspect that an agent of Carphone Warehouse group had infiltrated this forum.
I think not. My comment was as follows when taken in context.
"Of course if you are on a TalkTalk enabled exchange and need broadband
you can't beat TalkTalk's deal for price but heaven help you if you need to make any serious use of TalkTalk's service such as downloading programs using the BBC IPlayer".
Quote:It is Opal Telecom, another Carphone Warehouse group company, which apparently partners with NEG in providing most of the 0844 numbers used by GPs.
Trying to bring this back on-topic, what do these alternative providers charge for calls to 0844 numbers? Talk Talk used to offer free calls to other Talk Talk customers. If this also applies to Opal, is our Carphone Warehouse Group agent offering us a solution to the 0844 GP problem?
No this deal only applies to calls to other TalkTalk retail customer numbers and does not apply to other corporate numbers run by Opal Telecom, TalkTalk or the CarPhoneWarehouse group. Bizarrely they do make customer calls to their 0870 customer service number free of charge though, rather than using an 0800 or 0808 number as one would have expected. I suspect they do this so you can't call them for free on a non TalkTalk landline.
Quote:Personally I find Carphone Warehouse a slightly more distasteful company than BT, but that is largely based on prejudice against Blair’s buddies. Everyone is however entitled to their opinion, even if this involves public promotion of Carphone Warehouse
I find them vastly more distasteful than BT and given TalkTalk's disgraceful poor quality broadband service I tend to see Mr Charles Dunstone as little more than a well spoken ex public school confidence trickster. I also have direct experience from being with TalkTalk of disgraceful errors on both landline and a pay as you go mobile in terms of alarming errors in terms of billing for phantom calls that were either never dialled at all or dialled and not connected. BT will by contrast behave if Ofcom sets rules and their current behaviour is only due to Ofcom's disgraceful removal of those rules. Whereas CarPhoneWarehouse Group will normally ignore Ofcom's rules even when it does make them unless they receive large fines to encourage them to do so.
Quote:At the same time the cost of the all inclusive package also changes, creating a combined effect that makes this a far more attractive option. It is likely therefore that more people will opt for this (or alternatives from competitors) making the marginal cost of calling 08xx numbers even greater.
The fact that BT is being allowed to fiddle things to make it look to BT customers as though it is not worth leaving them is an outrage. In my view there should be different rules on phone exchanges so that where there is one or more LLU rivals BT can charge what it likes but where there is no LLU operator BT's line rental and call charges are controlled. In addition Wholesale Line Rental needs to be radically reviewed so that the amount charged to rival operators is BT Wholesales's real cost in providing the phone line plus a small profit. At the moment other phone operators are charged more or less the normal BT Retail price for Wholesale Line Rental.