Quote:The only exceptions are where calls are made from Sky or Virgin Media lines where there may be some inconsistencies and obviously calls from mobiles will be at the normal, much higher prices.
BT is the call provider which varies from others and not the other way around! Call providers are selling premium products (i.e. calls to 0845 numbers), but BT is not allowed to reflect the premiums in higher retail (call) charges. Other providers generally do reflect this premium in their retail call charges.
This came about due to regulation which was brought in during the days when the telecommunications market was being opened up to providers other than the incumbent and hence when most people made their calls with BT at that time. It was decided that BT must make the call charges for 0845 numbers the same as for local geographic calls.
Ofcom is currently in consultation with a view to lifting this out of date regulation.Remember that the idea was that we were to have different telcos to choose from, but that it must be possible to make calls to all telephone users, irrespective of whether the party being called is with the same provider as the caller or not. Thus, telcos must interconnect with one another.
It was decided that where calls were made with BT to another operator's 0845 number that BT must hand over the vast majority of the call charges to the telephone company that the receiving party subscribes to. (As part of the same regulation, it was also stipulated that BT's 0845 call charges must be the same as it imposed for local calls.) Contrast this with the fact that for a geographic (local or national) call the caller's telco keeps most of the charges and hands over only a small payment (to the receiver's telco) for onward connection of the call (to its customer). These inter-operator charges could be thought of as the "wholesale" costs that telephone call providers incur when connecting calls.
Call providers that have entered the market (e.g. the said companies Sky and Virgin Media) incur broadly the same wholesale charges that BT does. Thus, their retail call charges tend to reflect the higher cost of connecting 0845 calls over geographic ones because they are not limited on the mark-up they can put on these calls, unlike BT (which must charge no more than a local call).
So we have a situation where Sheffield GPs are happy to sign up to services which have come about as a result of the opening up of the market in telecommunications services (i.e. they subscribe to a provider which isn't BT). Yet at the same time, they believe that patients should subscribe to BT (or be disadvantaged).
They also benefit through receipt of subsidy from calls to 0845 numbers (as a result of the higher wholesale charges I referred to), whilst at the same time painting a picture of patients not paying more. This comes about due to their selection of 0845 numbers, so their provider, KCom, receives around 1 pence per minute more than it would have done had they chosen a number starting 0114 or 03.
Quote:The Sheffield Local Medical Committee are currently in discussion with Kcom who deal with the handling of 0845 numbers in Sheffield GP practices, and we hope that the outcome of these discussions will ensure that all callers to our practices are not financially disadvantaged.
The way forward is to switch to geographic 0114 numbers or 03 numbers. They have until 31st March 2011 before the revised GP contract comes in which requires them not to charge more than the price of a local call.
This stipulation of not charging more than a local call applies to patients as a whole, and not just only those who subscribe to services from BT.
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Eccleshall Medical Centre/Upperthorpe Med Centre (Read 100,881 times)
