Yes, this does make one despair but please be persistent.  There are threads under Surrey County Council which was persuaded to move to 03, it cost them nothing in the end and they have even won a customer service award!   A number of us are also pressing Essex County Council on this point.   Of course, the reply you received ignored the fact that 03 MUST be included in all inclusive packages, both landline and mobile (OFCOM intervened with my teleco to enforce this) and my understanding is the tariff is the same for 01, 02 & 03, that's why 03 was introduced, so it cost no more than 01/02.   Also, there has been no such thing as "local" calls since 1st July 2004!  I'm sure Dave can give you some further pointers etc to use.

Please carry on the good work & good luck.

PS I think this again demonstrates how useful it would be to have some kind of template for people to use or at least a "FACTS" page so that users of NGNs could be directed to it to understand the errors they are perpetrating.

My original complaint to East Cambs pointed out all the stuff about 03xxx numbers costing no more than anything else.  Which is why her reply is comparing the costs "as far as she knew".

My point here, apart from another illustration of the problem, was her claim that Ofcom was publishing these cheaper rates somewhere on their website. And I was wondering if anyone here knew whether this is or was ever true.  Before I politely continued battle with the Head of Finance I thought that I had better check what was known about such a claim about Ofcom's website.

And if there is such a claim on Ofcom's website then that surely needs to have something done about it - doesn't it?

olliecox wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010 at 6:36pm:

The information on call charges is correct, but that doesn't make 0845 acceptable.

Some example daytime costs:

BT:
01/02/03 is inclusive or 6.5ppm
0845 is inclusive or 2ppm (0.5ppm in the evening)

Virgin Media:
01/02/03 is inclusive or 6.5ppm
0845 is 10ppm at all times on all tariffs

Sky Talk:
01/02/03 is inclusive or 5.25ppm
0845 is 6ppm at all times on all tariffs


So, as you can see, the Ofcom claim is correct. There is a reason for this and that is that BT's margin (and hence retail prices) for 0845 numbers are regulated to a very low level, whereas 01/02/03 numbers are not. This is why 0845 is the same or less than 01/02/03 calls.

The "wholesale" cost to call retaillers for connecting their customers to 0845 numbers is around 1.5ppm, whereas 01/02/03 calls are around 0.4 ppm. These are known as "termination charges". So it stands to reason that they are going to reflect these higher costs in the form of higher retail prices.

So it looks like the Head of Finance was correct about 0845 numbers being the cheapest option for her customers "if they happen to be BT customers".  And I guess most of them are as BT is the biggest.

Unfortunately I'm a Virgin customer and it costs me a bomb.

Does this mean I have stop being so Victor Meldrewish about all this with the council?

olliecox wrote on Jan 30^th, 2010 at 7:19pm:

Unfortunately it's not as straightforward as that.

You would perhaps like to know why the costs of connecting 0845 calls are higher and who gets the benefit. And why it is that BT is given the competitive advantage of lower charges over its smaller rivals.

Just like the DWP, the Council prefers to give a discount to an alledged majority (customers of BT) at the direct expense of the alledged minority. East Cambridgeshire District Council is acting as marketing agent for BT. I believe that this sort of commercial favouritism should be confined to the private sector.

Current BT prices are a major obstacle to campaigning against use of 0845 numbers.

There are various ways of addressing this.


A - The complicated approach is to address the actual issue and explain that later this year Ofcom is planning to review the regulations which keep down BT's prices for calls to NTS (revenue sharing and PRS) numbers. A realistic hope is that the result of this work will be the removal of at least some of the perversity referred to above. One should however not get too excited, as there are a number of possible outcomes in respect of 0845.

If revenue sharing is retained on 0845, but the regulations on BT are removed, then its rates for calling 0845 numbers will rise. (Please join the queue to go on TV to celebrate a price increase!) It is however difficult to see BT suffering the bad effects of removing them from packages, given the fuss that it continues to make about this feature. A whacking great rise in the cost of non-inclusive 0845 calls is possible, but taking this above the cost of 01/02/03 calls (as should be the case, along with removing them from packages) seems unlikely. If the cost of 0845 calls simply rises to that of “normal” calls, this would not therefore greatly affect the arguments currently being advanced by users of 0845 numbers.

Another possibility is the removal of revenue sharing from 0845. This would be inevitably be accompanied by a requirement on all providers (probably stronger than that presently applied to 0870 calls) to charge no more than the cost of a 01/02/03 call. For users of 0845 numbers this would put a dent in their finances, because their (net) costs would rise as they lose the subsidy from callers. This would therefore be expected to take some time (perhaps several years) to come into effect. If this is seen as likely - opinion is divided - then it could be seen as a justification for not moving off 0845 now, as all will come right in the end!

Whilst the likely effect of whatever Ofcom ends up doing will probably be “good” in terms of our campaign, it does little to help with getting people off 0845 numbers now.


If anybody would like to try to capture the relevant parts of the preceding comments (here and in the previous posting) in a briefing, then they have my best wishes and offer of assistance. I have done a blog entitled BT charges may vary from others which touches on some of the points.


B. Another approach is to address the question of the cost to the “customer” in more detail, by assessing the mix of telephone tariffs used by callers and the relative costs of 0845 vs. 03 numbers. Those with BT and some others will find the cost of 0845 to be less or the same, others will find it more expensive. The difference varies and with packages from which 0845 calls are excluded there is the call connection fee to take into account. I have attempted to get figures of tariff usage out of Ofcom so as to attempt some calculation for the UK as a whole, but without success. Each particular number will be subject to a different mix of callers, depending on the relevant population and the nature of the service. (The DWP has looked into this simply to try to split between landline and mobile callers.)

If anybody wants to have a serious go at this type of exercise, I would be delighted to help. I am concerned that one would have to rely on so many unproved assumptions that, lacking proper authority, an otherwise impressive set of calculations would end up being meaningless. Does anyone have any ideas about how this could be done properly?


C. Our National Health Service is provided without charge to individual patients to meet a personal need, it is not a service offered to groups of consumers who may be required to pay for the service in part or in full. For this reason, the recently confirmed requirement for the cost of a telephone call to any NHS provider (in England) to be no greater than that of an equivalent call to a geographic number is absolute. The fact that some may call a number more cheaply cannot be taken into account if even a single patient would find it more expensive.

I have therefore produced a briefing for NHS bodies, who are now directed to comply with this requirement. My lists of Telephone Tariffs used by NHS Patients details (in List 1) those tariffs which impose higher charges for calls to 0845 numbers than for 01/02/03.

Whilst I feel totally justified in pressing the “absolute” case in respect of the NHS, I would strongly argue that the same should apply to many public services (e.g. those provided by DWP and HMRC), although this can only be a matter of personal opinion. In some cases this could be a consumer issue, where the benefits available to some consumers through the cost savings available with BT and others must be fully taken into account. There is also the fact that the savings to taxpayers as a result of using revenue sharing numbers may be a proper consideration. Where I campaign for the removal of 0845 numbers I am happy to dismiss these two considerations as irrelevant; they cannot however be disregarded.


I hope this briefing is helpful.

That's really useful information Dave, thanks.

It sounds like just the sort of thing to quietly point out to the East Cambs Head of Finance - I'm sure she won't want to be out-done by whatever the County Council does.

I'll let you know what happens if anything.

I'm also glad to hear that the Cambridgeshire police have changed too.  I complained officially to them about 18 months ago and was told they were reviewing the situation.  Glad to know it's changed - although they've yet to repaint the numbers on all their police cars so I hadn't become aware of the change.

I'm sure I was only one of many that complained but "every little helps" and this should be encouragement to all - and 18 months for a public body to change its spots is impressively fast!