(maybe there should be another section here for 0800 and 0808 numbers, which strictly speaking are not 'non-geographic' but another category)

I work as a gas installer and have been irritated for a LONG time that when I call the 'National Gas Emergency' number (0800 111999) from my mobile, it's  chargeable and NOT deductible from my call-minutes.  ALL the mobile providers charge for 0800 - apparently because they can!

To make matters worse, another service provider (Plumbfix) was recently launched with a catalogue of plumbing stuff but listing only one number for everything (0808 101 0000).

I was (finally) moved to call OFCOM to complain about 'Freephone' numbers not being free on mobiles and was told it was a 'commercial decision' for the mobile service providers.  This seemed a bit supine, since the whole POINT of 'Freephone' numbers is lost if they're not free!

I also realized that in fact there is already a serious safety-related issue here: consider the situation of a Pay-as-you-Go mobile user with no credit on their phone needing to call 0800111999 to report a gas leak...

There was a fanfare this morning from the EU: it seems the Commission is leaning on all the European mobile providers to make international text messaging cheaper.  Hooray!  Pity our very own OFCOM can't be as effective.

Maybe saynoto0870 should launch a Make Freephone Free campaign, aimed at the Commission in Brussels instead of at OFCOM in UK!

Yeah - OK.  These pass-through numbers (well - one of them, anyway) does work on T-Mobile and does allow 0800 and 0808 numbers to be used from a mobile and charged out of call-minutes, instead of surcharged.

Unfortunately, it doesn't deal with the problem of a pay-as-you-go mobile user with a gas leak and no credit on the phone.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Jul 2^nd, 2008 at 9:30pm:
Do you mean to say that mobile companies incur more costs for terminating freephone numbers than landline companies do?

Personally I think they should be discounted, not free. Ie, the mobiles charge the receiver the same as a call from a geographic number would be, and make up the rest from their rates, or free minutes, where avaliable.

It seems to me that games of Ofcom have become to tire and delude some campaigners and consumers!

What you all seem to be missing here is that originally Freephone numbers were exactly that. They were defined by Oftel to be free to the caller because they are paid for by the receiving subscriber. They were stated in the NTNP to be that. When the supposed "regulator" allowed telcos to get away with charging the originating subscriber to make a "Freephone" call this immediately meant that the same call was being paid for twice over! Remember that mobile telcos were not the first to start this abuse; it was actually some of the early land-line carriers!

So the most important issue to focus on with this continuing abuse is that it is outrageous that any call should be charged for twice over. This is fraudulent and if anything an even worse abuse than the tricks played with 0870 and the like. The very worst feature is that this is never announced or admitted and most callers do not realise that this is occurring. So, to charge twice for the same call without admitting or declaring it is totally fraudulent and illegal. In any other area of retail transaction this would be treated as a confidence trick of the very worst and most serious type, and the perpetrators would be prosecuted. But Hey, this is telecoms, and with the corrupt "regulator" anything goes. The police, the government, the OFT, nor any of the other organs of our supposedly "civilized" and ordered society existing to ensure that the law is enforced take any action against this fraud, because Telecommunications is ignored as being an area of enforcement when the normal laws are broken. That is just how serious this abuse really is.

In successive "consultations" I have pointed out to Ofcom that this abuse is illegal and that if mobile or other providers do not want to carry Freephone calls as such they should just refuse to carry them; they should not be allowed by Ofcom to carry them and then charge for the call a second time over! Ofcom as usual with everything disregard this, because their Telecoms buddies are making lots of money out of this abuse as with all of the other abuses which they allow and condone.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Jul 3^rd, 2008 at 9:18pm:
When a mobile customer makes a call to a geographical 01 or 02 number, this call is most likely routed on leased landlines the mobile provider leases from the likes of BT & C&W.  The call will be carried on these leased landlines for as long as possible to the area code to which the caller dialled, and then finally terminated.  This method is cheaper to carry calls because the mobile company doesn't pay for any part of the call until it is forced to terminate it in the area code dialled (or as close to it as possible).  Of course the mobile company pays for the leased landlines but I suspect this is a set figure so they dont have to pay extra if more and more calls are routed via the leased landlines.  This is why some mobile companies offer free mobile to mobile calls providing it's on same network as it's then routed on their leased landline and back onto the mobile mask nearest to where the other mobile user is.

Now, when a mobile customer makes a call to an 080x, this call is immediately routed to a landline provider (most likely BT or C&W) and then the landline provider will terminate the call at the telecom company that owns the 080x number.  The exact same thing must happen with 084x/087x numbers simply because it's not possible to know which town/city to terminate at.

In both these circumstances, the company that operates the freephone doesn't pay any extra just because they're receiving a call from a mobile.  This is why it's not economical to include calls to 08x in any inclusive price plans.  However, even taking into consideration the cost of running a mobile network (masks, leasing of landlines, etc), is it really necessary to charge obscene amounts of money to call 08x numbers.

Mobile networks, unlike landline networks now, are very competitive and as such this has meant that mobile networks have to find money from other areas to remain afloat and it looks like they do this by charging a fortune for calls outside any inclusive mins and texts and for calls to 08x numbers.

Two things annoy me, and they are: 1) Mobile companies are obliged to inform callers by way of a free call announcement that calls to 080x aren't free - which they do but I'm not aware of any mobile company informing the caller just how much they have to pay to call a 080x.  2) When useless OfcoN proposed the same thing for NGN range of numbers, telco's claimed it was too costly but this is pretty much what mobile companies do now for calls to freephone numbers!  

dorf wrote on Jul 4^th, 2008 at 12:08pm:


Apologies for being so slow in replying; I haven't been here much recently

The calls are not being paid for twice over

The reason that the mobile companies had problems with them is that the receivers of the call would not pay the higher tariffs that the mobile networks consider their charges should be. For example, a landline receiving a call via their 0800 number might pay an average of 1 to 3 pence a minute to their provider for the call diversion; a mobile network usually expects its per minute charges to be higher than this.

When Orange and T-mobile and Virgin had free 0800 and 0808 calls, a number of callthrough services were using such access, and on the cheapest some of their ongoing destinations cost from 0.5 pence a minute (e.g. on 18185). It's pretty obvious that there just isn't enough margin there that the mobile network would receive any part of that revenue from the call provider.

Similar problems occur abroad. On some mobile networks, and also from callboxes, freephone calls are indeed free. And some of the callthrough providers have higher published charges when used on a mobile network or from a phonebox, and they pay part of this across. But where the mobile networks have experienced calls on numbers that they recognise as paying them no revenue share, the calls are blocked. I've not only read other people talking about this in for example Netherlands, but had a family member in Germany experiment with several calling card and similar methods on one of the German mobile networks. About 5 are blocked and two worked, which did have modest surcharges (but since then I've found cheaper calls from Germany anyway, from 8 or 9 cents a minute)

So, although the mobile network tariffs to freephone numbers are now as ludicrously over the top as to most other 08xxx numbers, I disbelieve that there is any actual fraudulent double-charging as you repetitively assert, and I suggest that your impression that Ofcom is consequently corrupt in turning a blind eye is unlikely to apply to these cases.

But Ofcom is lazy and really hasn't sorted this out like some other countries have. There could be either actually free calls and selective barring of those numbers that abuse the system, or a reasonable amount per minute, somewhere in the 5 to 15 pence a minute range depending how their other rates compare