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Post Office HomePhone (Read 32,704 times)
NGMsGhost
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Post Office HomePhone
Nov 13th, 2013 at 10:47pm
 
Q wrote on Nov 13th, 2013 at 6:29pm:
I won't be paying for CLIR from Jan and will leave BT over it. None of the mobile providers have ever charged, and BT cover the cost from commercial customers (ISDN etc)

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2003/2426/regulation/11/made


I suggest your best course of action is to vote with your feet and move your business to Post Office Homephone as they have just made CLI free of charge (probably in response to BT's latest dastardly move in trying to blackmail people in to paying a year up front via Line Advance to get so called "Free" Caller Display).  They also only have a minimum one month contract period for new customers, unlike most other landline phone companies where it is one year.  They also have other interesting packages such as one with free calls to mobiles at the weekend and very cheap basic broadband.

Your phone number will not change and the actual line will still be delivered and maintained on behalf of Post Office Homephone by BT Openreach.  Post Office HomePhone also does not restrict use of Indirect Access call services like www.18185.co.uk and www.1899.com

As to BT's top brass the following email addresses may be of assistance although I doubt you will get them to change their mind.  These email addresses definitely work.

Chief Executive -  gavin.e.patterson@bt.com
Chaiman - michael.rake@bt.com
Finance Director - tony.chanmugam@bt.com
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« Last Edit: Nov 13th, 2013 at 10:48pm by NGMsGhost »  

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Re: Post Office HomePhone
Reply #1 - Nov 13th, 2013 at 10:55pm
 
NGMsGhost wrote on Nov 13th, 2013 at 10:47pm:
Your phone number will not change and the actual line will still be delivered and maintained on behalf of Post Office Homephone by BT Openreach.  Post Office HomePhone also does not restrict use of Indirect Access call services like www.18185.co.uk and www.1899.com

Does Post Office Home Phone use a LLU provider or is it BT Wholesale?
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Re: Post Office HomePhone
Reply #2 - Nov 14th, 2013 at 1:26am
 
Interesting - I didn't know about about Postoffice home phone I shall have a look into that thanks!

It's going to take me a couple of weeks to fully read through & digest everything before I might fire off an email to the top brass. I'm not expecting any sort of climb down but I will be looking forward to a few answers as to how the justify the charge at all (given its part of the 'system' and costs nothing to actually present), why they still insist on only passing the 'international' flag with off-shore calls (when most if not all mobile providers pass the CLIR as received) and what this does for my elderly relatives who rely on CLIR  and already get robbed for not paying by direct debit and who do not want to take out 12+ month contracts...

1571 has its own problems as well... Call someone from a mobile & hit the answer phone yay you get charged for the call & have *no* control over it. Call someone without 1571 from a mobile and get 'engaged' you pay *nothing* for the call. Same thing stands for payphones etc...
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Re: Post Office HomePhone
Reply #3 - Nov 14th, 2013 at 2:52am
 
Dave wrote on Nov 13th, 2013 at 10:55pm:
NGMsGhost wrote on Nov 13th, 2013 at 10:47pm:
Your phone number will not change and the actual line will still be delivered and maintained on behalf of Post Office Homephone by BT Openreach.  Post Office HomePhone also does not restrict use of Indirect Access call services like www.18185.co.uk and www.1899.com

Does Post Office Home Phone use a LLU provider or is it BT Wholesale?

Source: thinkbroadband, Thursday 18 July 2013
Post Office phone and broadband switchover starts

Post Office HomePhone and Broadband has recently switched to TalkTalk from BT Wholesale.
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NGMsGhost
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Re: Post Office HomePhone
Reply #4 - Nov 14th, 2013 at 8:56am
 
Dave wrote on Nov 14th, 2013 at 2:52am:
Source: thinkbroadband, Thursday 18 July 2013Post Office phone and broadband switchover starts

Post Office HomePhone and Broadband has recently switched to TalkTalk from BT Wholesale.


After your question I checked and found this article about the swap to TalkTalk, Fujitsu and Capita dated 25th May 2012 at www.information-age.com/technology/mobile-and-networking/2105193/post-office-dro... Yet at the moment, 18 months later, my line is still with BT Openreach judging from various short codes and features that only normally work on a BT Openreach provided line.

As it happens my internet connection is actually underlyingly through Opal Telecoms (the business division of CarPhone Warehous) LLU equipment (the same LLU equipment as TalkTalk's) but my internet service provider is www.vivaciti.net and I have never had any problems or outages with it.  This business product gives me a much higher priority for downloading in peak hours than TalkTalk's own cheapest broadband products.

I wonder if the new ability of Post Office Homephone to offer CLI without charging any extra is connected with the switch from BT Openreach to Opal/CPW's network?

At the end of the day Post Office Homephone's contractual terms are considerably better than those of TalkTalk's but and if indirect access disappears I will probably just take an Anytime calls package as I think 18185 generally costs me about the same but is always a nuisance when hunting for a new alternative geographic number.

BT certainly do not deserve to be supported in view of their disgraceful behaviour in vastly ramping up the cost of line rental over the last 10 years and in bringing in massive connection fees and widely rolling out "free 1571 voicemail" in order to blackmail everybody in to taking Anytime calls packages.  This policy is hugely discriminatory against single person households who get far less economic benefit from such packages than families.

Trying to force people to take Line Advance is all just part of their latest disgusting Accountant led quest to guarantee the entire value of their expected annual revenue stream.  Leaving this leaching company is the only way one can stop this.

I believe Primus have probably already blocked Indirect Access on their lines so the days of Finarea's UK telecoms provision may be limited.  I also currently have huge issues with my 18185 service where calls are taking up to 30 seconds to connect and I am getting some overseas call misrouting messages.
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« Last Edit: Nov 14th, 2013 at 8:57am by NGMsGhost »  

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Re: Post Office HomePhone
Reply #5 - Nov 14th, 2013 at 9:33am
 
On the subject of blocking indirect access . MSE cover this for suppliers they recommend .

"Primus Allows override providers? Yes (Gave MSE written guarantee lasting until at least Dec 2013)"

"Post Office  Allows override providers? Yes (says no plans to change this)"

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/home-phone-calls#postoffice50


This is not totally correct as when Primus deliver service by LLU, indirect numbers like 1899 are blocked.

I suspect the same thing will apply when Post Office deliver service by LLU.

So like Primus your have some customers who can call useing indirect short codes, and some that cant.
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« Last Edit: Nov 14th, 2013 at 9:41am by bigjohn »  

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Re: Post Office HomePhone
Reply #6 - Nov 14th, 2013 at 10:43am
 
bigjohn wrote on Nov 14th, 2013 at 9:33am:
I suspect the same thing will apply when Post Office deliver service by LLU.

So like Primus your have some customers who can call useing indirect short codes, and some that cant.


TalkTalk installed an LLU in my country village exchange 22 months ago but so far I can continue to use 18185 and 1899.  This suggests that at the moment the Post Office Homephone line still uses BT Openreach's main telephone exchange equipment and not TalkTalk's LLU setup.

However it appears this may change at some point.   I am on Post Office Homephone's evening and weekend plan that also gives free calls to UK mobiles and international fixed line numbers at the weekend.  Strangely the Anytime calls upgrade costs the same from this package as their other cheaper line rental package that only gives weekend calls to UK landlines free and not calls at the weeekend to UK mobiles or EU landlines.

Logically PostOffice Homephone should charge less to upgrade to Anytime calls from their more expensive package that includes weekday evening calls and calls to UK mobile and European landlines at the weekend.  Their Anytime calls upgrade for this plan ought in my opinion to only be £2.99 per month.

If and when any kind of useful 4G service ever arrives here I may consider ditching my landline completely but for now most of the networks around here are still only 2G or 3G with a very poor signal strength.  Having said that we are supposed to be getting 100Mbps FTTP at this address due to our exchange being a winner in the BT Race To Infinity competition but so far BT are two years late in delivering on their commitment to provide this and we still only have ADSL2+ Shocked Angry Angry Angry
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Re: Post Office HomePhone
Reply #7 - Nov 14th, 2013 at 10:56am
 
It seem this could get pretty interesting as a way to make a major fuss about TalkTalk changing the service and unnecessarily blocking Indirect Access.  TalkTalk are within their rights to block 1280 (routing via BT) in my opinion as there is no billing mechanism but are not within their rights to block services like 18185 and 1899.

From Their Terms and Conditions at http://www.postoffice.co.uk/sites/default/files/TsCs_HPandBB_After_020913.pdf

Quote:
PART 2 – POST OFFICE HOMEPHONE

19. The Post Office HomePhone Service

Normally we will automatically provide you with
equivalent services to those you received from
your old service provider (like call barring, call
divert and caller display).
If we cannot do this
automatically, we will put measures in place to try
to ensure you receive those equivalent services,
but we cannot guarantee this will happen or that
these measures will be effective all of the time.
As a result, you may incur additional unforeseen
charges

You may have to pay additional Charges (which
will be charged at the rates set out in the Price
List) for some services you may have received
from your old service provider, such as indirect
access and other subscriber or premium rate
services.

You agree to check the services you are receiving
once the Post Office HomePhone Service starts
and check whether you are receiving the services
you previously received from your old service
provider. If you are not, you must tell us immediately


24. Call barring

We reserve the right to bar your calls if:


you fail to pay any bill promptly after we have
sent you a reminder;

there is (or we suspect there is) an unusual
amount of activity by you via indirect access (by
which you may have access to another service
operator’s network, for example by using “IA”
access codes)


26. The Post Office HomePhone with
Broadband Service


When you subscribe to Post Office HomePhone
with Broadband, you receive Post Office
HomePhone and Post Office Broadband. Post Office HomePhone

You may have to pay additional Charges (which
will be charged at the rates set out in the Price
List) for some services you may have received
from your old service provider, such as indirect
access
and other subscriber or premium rate
services.

You agree to check the services you are receiving
once the Post Office HomePhone Service starts and check whether you are receiving the services you previously received from your old service
provider. If you are not, you must tell us immediately.


But my suspicion is they won't tell me if and when they switch my phone service from BT Openerach's equipment to TalkTalk's but that I will immediately notice because my ability to access 18185 will be blocked at that time.

At that stage I will lodge a major high level complaint and see what happens.

Unless of course Post Office Homephone has insisted with TalkTalk/CPW/Opal that Indirect Access is not blocked for their customers apart from calls via 1280.
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« Last Edit: Nov 14th, 2013 at 11:06am by NGMsGhost »  

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Re: Post Office HomePhone
Reply #8 - Nov 14th, 2013 at 11:16am
 
Hmm.

So if Postoffice are now using TalkTalk Wholesale service is that for dial tone?

I am with Zen and and can't have anything happen to my ADSL service as I need it for work. What happens if I want to move my dial tone to them.

Also is there CLIR standard V23 FSK (aka what BT use)?
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Re: Post Office HomePhone
Reply #9 - Nov 15th, 2013 at 4:17am
 
Given that Post Office Homephone are not obliged to offer indirect access ,i can see no reason why they cant block indirect access if they so desire. The Terms and Conditions quoted apply to existing customers moving to them, not to changes that may occur later.

Hopefully they will continue to allow indirect access irrespective of whatever type of line they use. Smiley
Indirect Access Call Barring (IACB) does normally cost extra to implement per line. Dont know how much.
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« Last Edit: Nov 15th, 2013 at 4:34am by bigjohn »  

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Re: Post Office HomePhone
Reply #10 - Nov 15th, 2013 at 9:21am
 
ISTR it was (is?) 50p per code.
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After years of ignoring govt. guidelines & RIPPING OFF Council Tax payers using 0845 numbers, Essex County Council changed to 0345 numbers on 2 November 2015
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Re: Post Office HomePhone
Reply #11 - Nov 15th, 2013 at 9:22am
 
bigjohn wrote on Nov 15th, 2013 at 4:17am:
Given that Post Office Homephone are not obliged to offer indirect access ,i can see no reason why they cant block indirect access if they so desire.

They should not block Indirect Access in order to demonstrate that they are a better and more ethical telecoms service provider than TalkTalk and that they know the prices for their own calls are so good that they are not afraid of facing competition.

In my personal opinion Ofcom should still require all fixed line operators using the conventional fixed line phone network to offer Indirect Access and should probably also require the same of Virgin.  This would ensure phone companies with customers on up to 18 month contracts cannot exploit them with ripoff rates to 084/7, 09, mobiles or for overseas calls by suckering them in with a low headline price for their broadband or television package.
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Re: Post Office HomePhone
Reply #12 - Nov 15th, 2013 at 9:27am
 
Heinz wrote on Nov 15th, 2013 at 9:21am:
ISTR it was (is?) 50p per code.


Clearly OPAL/CPW/TalkTalk group have found the 50p per customer is more than worth it to enslave their customers to ripoff rates for 084/7 numbers and for fixed line and mobile overseas calls. Angry Angry Angry
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« Last Edit: Nov 15th, 2013 at 9:27am by NGMsGhost »  

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Re: Post Office HomePhone
Reply #13 - Nov 15th, 2013 at 11:32am
 
Q wrote on Nov 14th, 2013 at 11:16am:
I am with Zen and and can't have anything happen to my ADSL service as I need it for work. What happens if I want to move my dial tone to them.


Post Office Homephone will only migrate your phone line for calls to OPAL/CPW/TalkTalk's LLU at some point (and even then only if there is a TalkTalk LLU on your exchange, something which you can check at www.samknows.com if you do an Exchange Search) but your broadband connection will remain connected to Zen via BT unless you decided to switch to Post Office Homephone's own broadband.
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Re: Post Office HomePhone
Reply #14 - Nov 15th, 2013 at 7:06pm
 
My exchange is quite unbundled so the dial tone will be provided by a 3rd party... (CPW, TT or whoever they actually use)

Long as they don't break the adsl I don't care. I shall post to another forum and see what there track record is like for not breaking things (unless anyone here has direct experience)

Also still need to confirm which version of CLI they use.
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« Last Edit: Nov 15th, 2013 at 7:25pm by Q »  
 
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