BT has taken the opportunity of the VAT change to revise its charges. From the limited information published in advance of the change it can be seen that a claim that the revisions are nothing more than the effect of applying "rounding" to a 2.13% percent (2.5/117.5) increase does not stand up to examination.

At the time of this posting the BT website is down, presumably whilst full revised price lists are being loaded. Certain mobile websites are down also, presumably for the same reason.

Members who have noted the way in which the opportunity of a forced change has been used to make adjustments may wish to comment on what they have found, in this thread.

sherbert wrote on Jan 4^th, 2011 at 9:42am:

This includes the statement Quote:

The following examples give one cause to question the accuracy of this statement:

Item	Old price	Simple adjustment	New price	Percentage increase
Line rental	£13.29	£13.57	£13.60	2.33%
Anytime Call Plan	£4.99	£5.10	£5.00	0.20%
Call setup fee - pence	10.90	11.10	11.50	5.50%
Daytime call to Geographic Rate number - PPM	6.40	6.50	7.00	9.38%
Daytime call to 0845 number - PPM	2.000	2.0425	2.042	2.10%
Call to 0844 (g6) number - PPM	5.000	5.1063	5.105	2.10%

The differences from the simple rounded effect of adding 2.13% and retaining the same degree of accuracy show that these are price adjustments. It is only the penultimate example that is free of tweaking beyond the effects of mathematical rounding.

The most obvious case is with the increased bias towards the Anytime call plan as the most economical option for all those who make any weekday daytime calls.

After all the recent changes, the Anytime call plan now offers a better deal than the basic Weekends only plan for subscribers with any of the following patterns of daytime calls to geographic numbers:

• THREE 5-minute calls per week
• TWO 8-minute calls per week
• ONE 2-minute call per day
• ONE 17-minute call per week

Any calls made during the evening and to 0845 and 0870 numbers also need to be considered as they too are covered.

These are illustrative, as a real pattern is unlikely to be so regular.

A rough calculation shows the average cost of a daytime call of up to 20 minutes to a Geographic Rate number to have increased by around 8.5%. The cost of the Anytime package has increased by 0.20%.

This serves to further confirm my argument that the standard marginal cost of a daytime call to a Geographic number through BT is zero. Anyone who makes such calls would be expected to subscribe to the Anytime Call Plan.

The cost of a BT call to a 0844 number (increased by just over 5.5%) is all premium.

sherbert wrote on Jan 4^th, 2011 at 8:40pm:

Indeed, there is.

I had not mentioned this as most of the calls that we are concerned with are made during business hours. The situation with evening calls is actually yet more confused.

The charge for the Evenings Plan (Weekend calls are inclusive for all) has been rounded down from what should have been an increase from £2.99 to £3.05 to £3.00.

An even more extraordinary piece of "rounding" is seen in the rate for evening calls, which should have gone from 1.50 ppm to 1.53 ppm, being rounded down to 1.00 ppm. This means that evening calls of more than 2 minutes are now cheaper than they were before the VAT change; this reduces the incentive to subscribe to the Evenings Plan.

For those who would subscribe to the Evenings Plan, the number of daytime calls to justify the extra £2 per month for the Anytime Plan is obviously much less. Patterns such as those given below would make it worthwhile:

• TWO 2-minute calls per week
• ONE 6-minute call per week
• TWO 13-minute calls per month

I previously mentioned that BT customers who consider subscribing to the Anytime Plan need to consider the benefit of inclusive evening calls, as well as calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers.

SilentCallsVictim wrote on Jan 4^th, 2011 at 10:12pm:



No charge at all for this option if you sign up to a 12 month rolling contract. (Just to confuse matters more)

Trenod wrote on Jan 5^th, 2011 at 1:57am:

I like to think of BT and all other providers of telephone contracts as offering Geographic Rate calls as inclusive in whatever package best fits the times when one uses the telephone (landlines) or the extent of one's usage (mobiles). A penalty charge is imposed for calls made outside these limits.

"Business Rate" and "Premium Rate" calls are always subject to specific (penal!) charges.


Occasional users need to find the deal that suits their particular irregular pattern best. As most of the cost of telephony is in the capital cost of providing the network, they must expect to pay higher rates than regular users. We are now in a commercial world, far removed from that where the telephone network was provided by the state and charged for on the basis of usage.

The BT Light User Scheme has been replaced by the BT Basic tariff. This remains, as was the Light User Scheme, a "social tariff" designed for those who need connection to the telephone network but cannot afford to make full use of it. With the way that mobile telephony has developed the PAYG mobile has taken on something of this role, however this is threatened by the current process of reducing the termination fees paid on calling to mobiles.


BT is currently prohibited from levying an "Access Charge", other than its standard call setup fee, on calls to NGCS numbers. That is why the daytime penalty charges are higher than the total cost of calling any 084 number. Ofcom proposes to remove this prohibition, so we hope that a clearer and more honest position will be reached if the proposals are carried through.

Trenod wrote on Jan 5^th, 2011 at 9:20pm:

The evidence of the situation in 1996 appears conclusive in relation to the situation at that time.

I cannot explain how the "social responsibility" which historically was the basis of the scheme, and is now required by regulation as the basis for the Basic Tariff, came to be removed. I cannot explain either why BT was happy to provide a facility voluntarily at one time, but then decided to withdraw it.

If BT was not under a regulatory duty to offer such a scheme, then I cannot see why it needed to offer any excuse for its withdrawal. Telecoms is no longer a state monopoly - in general each provider is free to offer whatever services produce a return for shareholders.