Members will be interested to note that, due to their being "of extreme social value", services on the three numbers announced must be genuinely "free to caller", whether the calls are made from a fixed line, mobile or public payphone.

(There could leave open doubt about the situation with a privately provided payphone.)

It is indicated that the service provider will have to bear the cost of all calls, although sponsorship (which may not be announced during the call) is permitted.

The general statement indicates that not all 116 numbers may be seen as having the same degree of social value and so may not warrant the determination that they are "free to caller". They must however meet the requirement imposed by the EU Commission that they be "freephone". In the UK, it is determined that the term "freephone" retains the meaning that calls from mobiles may be charged to callers.

For those seeking clarity about charging this is most disappointing. We will move forward with two terms "free to caller" and "freephone". The latter is understood to imply charging from mobiles, although this is subject to charge waiver by either some or all mobile companies, as presently exists.

For those interested in the complexity of arrangements this is most exciting. Either or both of the following situations could arise.

If perhaps arrangements are to be made for a service provider to bear the costs of calls from mobiles, so as to offer a "free to caller" service, the potential would arise for similar arrangements to be made available to other service providers, including commercial organisations. This is not known to exist at present.

Childline is very likely to be the successful bidder for the 116111 service. Charges for calls to its 0800 1111 number are waived by the mobile companies under a longstanding special arrangement that pre-dates the THA deal on 080880. It is therefore likely that the mobile companies will agree to sponsor the 116111 service and thereby have to be credited for this generosity. If so, it is possible that the landline providers would wish to get in on this by earning similar credit for themselves. Once the option of publicly noted sponsorship arises, who knows where this would end!

116?
Ah, this would be the code repeatedly suggested to Ofcom when they were pushing 101?
I recall many objections to 101 and industry suggestions for 116 in line with ITU and EU policy; and the Home Office spokesman then responding that 101 would be more memorable - with people watching Room 101 on tv.
ye gods.

NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2009 at 9:27pm:

Not just UK telephone users. I guess that 118 directory enquiries is a pan-European scheme.

This French DQ service looks familiar: www.118218.fr

NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2009 at 9:43pm:

To my mind there are only so many numbers that can be given "special" numbers because the more you have the more it defeats the object of their uniqueness.

By special I mean short numbers such as 100, 101, 123, 999.

With the crazy way telecoms works these days, we have different length prefixes starting 1. Gone are the days when all were three digits. For some bizarre reason, the call provider 1899 has a four digit number, but others have 6 digits as too do 118 numbers.

So how many digits will the 116 numbers be?

I see that BT Wholesale actually markets the indirect access service as giving you a four digit rather than a five digit access code.  I assume they moved on to five digits when all the four digit permutations were exhausted.

See www.btwholesale.com/pages/static/Products/Interconnect/Access_Indirect.html

NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2009 at 9:58pm:

They are allocated by Ofcom and listed here.

What a total shambles!

To return to the topic, Ofcom announced that:
Quote:

As Ofcom is a key contributor to the relevant EU discussions it doubtless carries some of the responsibility for this decision, however that is the decision that has now been made.