I know there are some other forum members who are also customers of utility Warehouse (& I know that many others have posted criticising UW, rightly in many ways).  I felt I should alert fellow customers to the fact that UW have reintroduced charges for calls to 0845 numbers (they followed BT in making calls to 0845 inclusive within their packages).  This retrograde change was buried in a very long & complicated revision of charges document.  I have registered a formal complaint.  However, I think it might be wise for customers of other telecos who also followed BT's lead to check with their providers the situation regarding 0845 & whether they remain included before they rack up big bills without realising.

What are the charges for 0845 calls now?

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It is good to note that UW has decided to continue including 0870 calls in packages. Since 1 August 2009 telephone call retailers no longer incur a surcharge for connecting calls to them.

Clearly, the inclusion of 0845 numbers in packages is an issue which divides us. Whilst inclusion does permit calls to these numbers with no incidental costs, it does mean that customers in general must pay more, which is why I oppose it.

Had UW not made this change, then, all things being equal, it would have had to increase the price of its packages.


Including 0845 calls in packages is also not very helpful in the campaign against these numbers, as users may give it as justification for their use.

sherbert wrote on Nov 26^th, 2010 at 7:48pm:


50p, because around the time BT included 0845/0870 they increased the line rental to take account, (they will deny this but it happened around the same time).

sherbert wrote on Nov 26^th, 2010 at 7:48pm:

The extra burden on call providers for connecting a call to a 0845 number versus connecting to a 01/02/03/0870 number is around 1 pence per minute during the daytime.

The "wholesale" cost on call providers to connect 01/02/03/0870 calls is roughly 0.5 pence per minute and 1.5 pence per minute for 0845 calls. So the mark-up is to cover their own costs and make a return on selling calls.


sherbert wrote on Nov 26^th, 2010 at 7:48pm:

BT Retail (the bit of BT that offers services to end users) is regulated on the mark-up it can apply to 084x, 0871/2 and 09 calls, but not 01/02/03/0870 ("normal") numbers.

Think of a supermarket selling products and a simple description of the costs involved. For each product, it charges customers a retail price which consists of the amount it cost to stock the product (the wholesale price) plus a mark-up.

The mark-up on cut-price alcohol, for example, will be tiny (I'm making an assumption here, for the benefit of the analogy). Its costs for stocking it are effectively offset on the other products (which yield greater return for the retailer).

To come back to the situation with BT selling 0845 calls, it is only allowed a tiny mark-up on them, and this is by regulation. So broadly speaking, its retail price is the same as its wholesale price and thus it is forced to offset its costs elsewhere, much like supermarkets do (you might say) voluntarily with cut-price alcohol.

Other providers are allowed to price 0845 calls as they wish. Most choose to charge more for 0845 calls than normal calls, just as we would expect any retailer selling a more expensive product to do.

Some mirror BT's forced discounted retail call charges (thus offseting their costs elsewhere) and this is probably due to its market power.


What this all means (and here is the crunch) is that the additional cost to BT for including 0845 calls is simply the wholesale connection charges (as it's bound by regulation to make only a negligible mark-up). But as others are free to do as they please, and the additional cost to them is therefore their wholesale cost plus the mark-up (i.e. their current retail price).

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Additionally, it must be born in mind that where 0845 calls are offered for no extra charge, this will be likely to have the tendancy for customers to make more of them. So it will certainly be necessary for call providers that include them in packages to continually assess customers' usage and make changes to retail prices accordingly.

Perhaps this provider has done that and decided that enough is enough and that in order to maintain the prices of its packages (and thus its place in the market), it will have to forgo including 0845 calls in them.

Dave explains a very complex scenario very well.

Whilst revenue sharing (i.e. inflated termination fees) remains on 0845 calls, it is perverse for them to be included in packages.

In my view, BT's move to include both 0845 and 0870 calls in packages in January 2009 was simply in anticipation of revenue sharing being removed from both. The odd nature of the regulation enables this to be done at relatively modest cost with 0845, but with 0870 BT was taking a hit for the 7½ months before the termination fees changed.

Nearly two years later we await even an announcement that revenue sharing will be removed from 0845 - a long lead time (perhaps up to 2 years) would be expected once it is firmly announced. The Ofcom consultation that will be published in the next few weeks will probably (in my view) contain a firm proposal to this end. If it is does not, then BT will end up not only looking very silly, but also requiring some form of action to be taken to stop it exploiting a market advantage that the regulation of its prices encourages.


It is a complex situation. As a BT customer, I obviously have no problem with calling 0845 numbers, however I campaign vigorously against their use in the public sector. We may have a yet more difficult situation to face if the end of revenue sharing is announced. Given new powers that Ofcom will acquire next April, prohibition of premium charges will be much easier than has so far been possible with 0870. I suspect that the proposal will be, at an appropriate time, for both prohibition of revenue sharing and price enforcement similar to that applied to 03.

We will have to see how easy it will be to press for a move to 03, or return to geographic numbers, for those who may be tempted to say that 0845 is OK now, given changes that will still be some way off.

We will also wait to see if any of the telcos (other than those who mirror its prices anyway) join BT in dropping their rates or adding 0845 to packages ahead of the need to do so.

(I do not think it likely that anything so radical will be done with 0844/3.)

Only a couple of weeks to wait now.

Have just caught up with all the posts (am busy packing for our move in ten days - oh what a pain it is now to get phone & broadband sorted in a new area! but that's another story).   Just to clarify, when UW started to include 0870 & 0845 I did complain because they increased the inclusive package charges & I made the point that I avoided these numbers and objected to being charged for something I didn't want, they have not reduced package charges so I am now paying more for less.   On principle, I still made every effort to avoid using 0845 even when included because I object to them so strongly & to show solidarity with & support for those who did not have them included in packages, it certainly did not diminish my determination to campaign against them.  As I have said previously my objection to all these numbers is that, whether used by a private or public organisation, I see them, taking Dave's analogy of a supermarket, as akin to the supermarket charging customers an entrance fee.   My problem at the moment is that, with an imminent move, there are occasions when calling one of these numbers becomes unavoidable and, as I may be without broadband for up to two weeks, I can't even use this site!!!

Also perhaps investing in a i phone? This way you would be able to access the internet through the gps system.

Moving from Chelmpsford to where Barbara?