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I run a business and I want a non-geo! (Read 23,080 times)
yesbut
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I run a business and I want a non-geo!
Mar 23rd, 2008 at 12:01pm
 
New member here, please forgive me if this question gets asked all the time

I run a small business that provides various services - including voiceovers for companies and broadcasters, plus consultancy work

I know that I am going to have to move home(=office) at least once and very possibly twice in the next 12 months

I have to order a load of stationery/artwork/webwork/publicity now, including thousands of very expensive CD's for mailout

I hope you can understand why I want to get some non-geo numbers - to redo the whole thing twice in 18 months would be cripplingly expensive and annoying for the clients.

And yet I hate it when companies give 0870 numbers to me - and I would like to behave ethically to my customers (my clients are 99.999% companies rather than members of the public btw so I guess they are not that bothered about the bill..but it's the principle of the thing)

With the recent changes I think that now 0870 is the lesser of the evils?

Any other ideas for numbers I can get now, that I won't have to change?

On the technical side: I have an BT ISDN2e line here, with a Gesko 115 pbx..off that I have 2 landlines, a fax and my ISDN codec (for doing voiceovers and interviews down the line)..and I can get more msn's from BT in the future as my company expands...and I guess maybe we'd like to go Voipy in the future..maybe

Any future-proof strategies spring to mind?

Thankyou for any advice
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Dave
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Re: I run a business and I want a non-geo!
Reply #1 - Mar 23rd, 2008 at 3:42pm
 
yesbut wrote on Mar 23rd, 2008 at 12:01pm:
With the recent changes I think that now 0870 is the lesser of the evils?

You must have blinked when the "delay" was announced. 0870 numbers are as they were and I wouldn't bet on them staying as they are for a while yet.
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Re: I run a business and I want a non-geo!
Reply #2 - Mar 23rd, 2008 at 4:00pm
 
ahhh..thanks Dave

so what do you reckon is the least-worst thing I can do to get a number now that won't have to change in the mid-term?
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jgxenite
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Re: I run a business and I want a non-geo!
Reply #3 - Mar 23rd, 2008 at 4:08pm
 
Get an 03 number. There are various providers of these, but if you have a VoIP telephony system, it will cost you less than £2 a month (with no inbound call charges) to have an 03 number. I'm not sure about costs to routing to a normal geographic - probably a few pence a minute (same cost as if you had an 0800 number I recon).
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Re: I run a business and I want a non-geo!
Reply #4 - Mar 23rd, 2008 at 4:20pm
 
thanks...Voip is something I'm guessing we will get in to in the future..but we are a Mac based business that needs an ISDN line anyway so at the moment we do not have a Voip system

I'll look in to 03 numbers...have to say if I was given an 03 number by a company I'd be even more suspicious than of an 0870! purely because I have never heard of 03 and therefore would have that nagging doubt as to whether it is some new fangled 0898 rip off. At least with 0870 I know how much I am being ripped off by!

this is so annoying..I just wish the damn telcos could port an 0208 number around - further than three hundred yards
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Re: I run a business and I want a non-geo!
Reply #5 - Mar 23rd, 2008 at 5:44pm
 
yesbut wrote on Mar 23rd, 2008 at 4:20pm:
I'll look in to 03 numbers...have to say if I was given an 03 number by a company I'd be even more suspicious than of an 0870! purely because I have never heard of 03 and therefore would have that nagging doubt as to whether it is some new fangled 0898 rip off.

Send them the below link if they're worried.

http://www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1189257846/105#105
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After years of ignoring govt. guidelines & RIPPING OFF Council Tax payers using 0845 numbers, Essex County Council changed to 0345 numbers on 2 November 2015
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Re: I run a business and I want a non-geo!
Reply #6 - Mar 23rd, 2008 at 6:52pm
 
yesbut wrote on Mar 23rd, 2008 at 4:20pm:
[..] if I was given an 03 number by a company I'd be even more suspicious than of an 0870! purely because I have never heard of 03 [..]


Yes, shows just how well (NOT!) Ofcom managed to promote the new UK-wide 03 numbers...

This page has a nice introduction to 03 numbers, and that company also provide them at a relatively cheap price (however, I've never used them before so I'm not promoting them in any way Smiley).
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« Last Edit: Mar 23rd, 2008 at 6:53pm by jgxenite »  

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Re: I run a business and I want a non-geo!
Reply #7 - Mar 24th, 2008 at 1:35pm
 
very interesting, many thanks

Well I can see why 03 numbers are presumably less popular with small businesses than 0870

1. I would have to pay for them, every single month, forever
2. The public don't really know about them so the "value" to me is not much

whereas 0870 numbers are free to me...and my corporate customers won't mind calling them

I want to do the right thing, but it's a tricky decision

thanks again
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Reply #8 - Mar 24th, 2008 at 1:38pm
 
oh and with an 03 number I also have to pay call charges if it gets routed to a landline

this is sadly a no-brainer for companies trying to keep costs down..no wonder 0870 is so popular (with companies that is)
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Re: I run a business and I want a non-geo!
Reply #9 - Mar 24th, 2008 at 1:43pm
 
Unfortunately that is the world we live in (well, here in the UK anyway!) Anything that is "free" or "local" to us is charged back to the company. The only way a company can break even is with a chargeable non-geographic.

That said, if you had gone with an 0870 number, and if Ofcom had gone ahead with its plans to bring the cost down, you would have had to pay for that as it would be identical to a geographic number.

The only way I could see that you could do this would be to have an 0845 number (effectively the cheapest to call from a landline, still expensive from a mobile) but then also advertise a geographic number on your website (with the warning that it is likely to change in future). That is until you migrate to VoIP or something similar - then you could switch to an 03 number with only rental charges.
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Re: I run a business and I want a non-geo!
Reply #10 - Mar 24th, 2008 at 2:43pm
 
yesbut wrote on Mar 24th, 2008 at 1:35pm:
Well I can see why 03 numbers are presumably less popular with small businesses than 0870

The point here is that 03 is a neutral ground for the caller. Any additional cost is met by the receiver.

0870 users are all out to rip off the customer because they could have chosen a 0845 number which incur no incoming calls and in some cases allow revenue share. They deliberately went for the higher call rate.


Businesses will now incur extra charges above that of 01/02/03 numbers when calling 0845/0870 numbers. This could be put against the charges for a 03 number. So all this 0845/0870 defeats the point of today's telephone packages.


There's one final point and that's the fact that in a consumer driven market, competition is most effective at driving down prices when the consumer pays. For example, imagine if someone else would pay your supermarket bill. It wouldn't matter to you which goods you picked and the supermarket wouldn't need to offer deals or reduce the price of goods to make a sale. This is the case with 0845/0870. With 03, more demand will bring more providers into the market and drive down these charges.
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Re: I run a business and I want a non-geo!
Reply #11 - Mar 24th, 2008 at 2:56pm
 
yesbut wrote on Mar 24th, 2008 at 1:35pm:
[...] my corporate customers won't mind calling [0870 numbers] [...]


This is the vicious cycle we need to break - it is a bad mindset to be in, and just continues to re-enforce their use by companies. Companies, like normal people, have bills to pay, and they will use 087x numbers to cover these. If you use an 01/02/03 number, then you do that little bit to reduce their bills, and may perhaps persuade them to think about switching to an alternative number that is cheaper to call.

As Dave said, it is all about competition. If you are seen to be not ripping off your customers (be they home or business customers), you are more likely to persuade them to remain with you. I know that I would much rather get my services from companies that don't rip me off (most of the time this is unavoidable, but I certainly try to avoid companies that use them exclusively).
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« Last Edit: Mar 24th, 2008 at 2:58pm by jgxenite »  

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Re: I run a business and I want a non-geo!
Reply #12 - Mar 29th, 2008 at 11:51am
 
yesbut can obviously get a geographic 01/02 voip number with www.sipgate.co.uk and then keep moving that to wherever he/she is now working.

I fail to see why anyone in this line of work would still be using ISDN today as it is very expensive slow and outdated.  I am sure the equipment cost of switching to a broadband and voip solution (using www.sipgate.co.uk numbers) could be saved in just the first few months in IDSN line rental and phone charges.

As to yesbut's attitude on 03 numbers the fact is you are receiving a service by having NGNs re-directed wherever you want.  Why do you expect your customers rather than you to pay for the extra convenience inherent in redirecting your numbers wherever you want whenever you want?  It seems only because some of them are ignorant they are being ripped off.

I suspect you are in fact just yet another plant from an 0870 number vendor trying to justify your continued selling of these numbers.  Someone really opposed to 0870 numbers would never consider using them for their own phone number. Shocked Angry
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yesbut
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Re: I run a business and I want a non-geo!
Reply #13 - Mar 29th, 2008 at 12:03pm
 
thanks for the sipgate link..I will definitely look in to it...I'll need to check whether it will work with my ISDN system

I have ISDN because I do voiceovers down the line...this is an established technology for us VO's, works well, and will be around for a good few years yet...and given that I have paid for it already I might as well use it for my telephony needs, no?

No, I am a real person, not a shill from the 0870 mafia

Yes, I really do hate 0870..told my agent off when she got one..but when I find myself in the position I outlined in post 1 (starting new enterprises, have big cd-duplication start-up costs, know I will be moving at least twice in next 18 months) then I can really see the attraction to small businesses..

Genuine enquiry from genuine person, genuinely trying to get along, genuinely trying to do the sensible thing
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Re: I run a business and I want a non-geo!
Reply #14 - Mar 29th, 2008 at 12:25pm
 
yesbut wrote on Mar 29th, 2008 at 12:03pm:
I have ISDN because I do voiceovers down the line...this is an established technology for us VO's, works well, and will be around for a good few years yet...and given that I have paid for it already I might as well use it for my telephony needs, no?


An ISDN line is 64k or 128 if bonded to another one (which doubles the costs) but a broadband line is usually between 1000k and 7000k downstream (dependent on location) but around 448k upstream usually regardless of location.  Added to that ISDN lines have specific additional rental costs which could be deployed towards a decent broadband line.  It sounds to me like a classic case of someone who has been doing this for years not keeping up with technolgical change and this costing them more money than investing in new equipment that would work with broadband.  ISDN is yesterday's technology and is very over priced as well.
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Genuine enquiry from genuine person, genuinely trying to get along, genuinely trying to do the sensible thing


OK fair enough but I think it is your being wedded to ISDN and the old equipment that you use in conjunction with it that is really the issue here.

And no all broadband should not be judged by downmarket shysters like Talktalk who try to squeeze 15 customers in to a pint pot intended for one customer.  If you take your broadband from a decent provide like www.adsl24.co.uk, www.newnet.co.uk, www.idnet.co.uk or www.zen.co.uk then it is far faster, cheaper and more reliable than ISDN.
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