Hi chaps,

New to this group but it looks interesting, not least because I am an
ex GPO Telephones/Post Office Telephones/British
Telecommunications/British Telecom/BT: engineer.

Anyway here's my question:

A club to which I belong, have introduced an 0300 range number
alongside their 0845 number.  They state in their magazine, that calls
to this number are charged at local rates and are also treated by call
providers as equivalent to a geographic landline, and thus included in
"free calls to UK landlines" category, and so can come out of call
allowances.

Is this correct?  I can't see the point if it is, as to all intents
and purposes, local and national geographic calls are charged the same
these days - aren't they? - I could be wrong, but my carrier charges
the same for all UK geo landline calls.  In which case the club could
just have published their geographic number!

Am I missing something significant here?

TIA chaps,

Neil

(Reply via NG please)

Neil wrote:
> Hi chaps,

> A club to which I belong, have introduced an 0300 range number
> alongside their 0845 number.  

> Am I missing something significant here?

I've just viewed http://www.ttnc.co.uk/numbers/03-numbers.do and myself 
have failed to grasp the benefit.

It might be to do with 'memorable' numbers or just location, perhaps 
some organisations would prefer to be associated with the UK rather than 
a specific geographic location.

Geoff Lane

Neil wrote:
> Hi chaps,
>
> New to this group but it looks interesting, not least because I am an
> ex GPO Telephones/Post Office Telephones/British
> Telecommunications/British Telecom/BT: engineer.
>
> Anyway here's my question:
>
> A club to which I belong, have introduced an 0300 range number
> alongside their 0845 number.  They state in their magazine, that calls
> to this number are charged at local rates and are also treated by call
> providers as equivalent to a geographic landline, and thus included in
> "free calls to UK landlines" category, and so can come out of call
> allowances.
>
> Is this correct?  I can't see the point if it is, as to all intents
> and purposes, local and national geographic calls are charged the same
> these days - aren't they? - I could be wrong, but my carrier charges
> the same for all UK geo landline calls.  In which case the club could
> just have published their geographic number!
>
> Am I missing something significant here?

The whole point of the 03 prefix is that calls to them will be charged at 
the same rate as to terrestrial, 01 or 02 prefix, numbers that are distant 
enough to be a "national rate" call. Telecoms suppliers are not allowed to 
charge more for calls to 03 prefix numbers than they do to 01 or 02 prefix. 
It really puts things back to the position before companies got greedy and 
charged higher rates to 0870 prefix numbers. After a certain date the 03 
prefix will replace the 0844, 0845 and 0870 prefiices

Peter Crosland

g6jns@yahoo.co.uk

Neil wrote:
> Is this correct?  I can't see the point if it is, as to all intents
> and purposes, local and national geographic calls are charged the same
> these days - aren't they? - I could be wrong, but my carrier charges
> the same for all UK geo landline calls.  In which case the club could
> just have published their geographic number!
> 
> Am I missing something significant here?

In the case of a single club with a geographic influence, maybe 03 is 
not the best choice, but consider a company (or government department) 
which has offices all over the country or potentially call centers. What 
number should they publish? A London number? Birmingham? 20 numbers, one 
for each call center?

The answer, now, is an 03 ukwide number which will be routed by them to 
wherever they need to call to go. Has the same IN benefits as an 
0845/0870 number in that respect, but is charged to the call at the same 
rate as 01/02. Of course 01/02 numbers can do the same hunting/routing, 
but which areacode do you pick, when any one areacode doesn't really apply?

Regards,

"Peter Crosland"  wrote:

> 
> The whole point of the 03 prefix is that calls to them will be charged at 
> the same rate as to terrestrial, 01 or 02 prefix, numbers that are distant 
> enough to be a "national rate" call. Telecoms suppliers are not allowed to 
> charge more for calls to 03 prefix numbers than they do to 01 or 02 prefix. 
> It really puts things back to the position before companies got greedy and 
> charged higher rates to 0870 prefix numbers. After a certain date the 03 
> prefix will replace the 0844, 0845 and 0870 prefiices

Not quite.  This is what Ofcom told me in September of last year: 

"Ofcom has announced plans to undertake a further review of the 0845
range next year, with the aim of making a similar change as 0870 -
repairing the linkage to local call charges. Apart from this, Ofcom
currently has no plans to curtail revenue sharing on the other 08 ranges
(0844 and 0871)."

Geoff Lane  wrote in
news:fvabon$5gk$1@news.datemas.de: 

> I've just viewed http://www.ttnc.co.uk/numbers/03-numbers.do and
> myself have failed to grasp the benefit.
> 
> It might be to do with 'memorable' numbers or just location, perhaps 
> some organisations would prefer to be associated with the UK rather
> than a specific geographic location.

I work for a company that has offices in many parts of the UK.  We have
a single set of 5-digit extension numbers for internal use, but to work
out the external number you have to refer to a long list of possible
translations.  For example, extension 6xxxx is 020 7nn6 xxxx whereas
83xxx is 0161 nn8 3xxx. 

We tried for a while giving everyone a London 020 number, but customers
in eg Manchester were confused to be given a London number to call a
local office, which is why we moved to the current scheme. 

It would be ever so much easier to rememeber, and I think easier for our
customers, if we used 03n nnnx xxxx, where nnnn was the same for all our
offices. 

So there's one benefit.

Peter

-- 
Peter Campbell Smith ~ London ~ pjcs00 (a) gmail.com

On 30 Apr, 17:29, Neil  wrote:
> A club to which I belong, have introduced an 0300 range number
> alongside their 0845 number.  They state in their magazine, that calls
> to this number are charged at local rates...

It might be very unscientific, but personally I'd have preferred that
0300 had reamined unallocated - because I suspect some people may
assume it to be free to call (like 0800 and 0500), especially as the
other 0x00s either don't exist (0000, 0100, 0200, 0400, 0600) or may
exist but are rarely used by most people (0700, 0900).

Steve Adams

On Thu, 1 May 2008 06:55:39 -0700 (PDT), Steve
 wrote:

>On 30 Apr, 17:29, Neil  wrote:
>> A club to which I belong, have introduced an 0300 range number
>> alongside their 0845 number.  They state in their magazine, that calls
>> to this number are charged at local rates...
>
>It might be very unscientific, but personally I'd have preferred that
>0300 had reamined unallocated - because I suspect some people may
>assume it to be free to call (like 0800 and 0500), especially as the
>other 0x00s either don't exist (0000, 0100, 0200, 0400, 0600) or may
>exist but are rarely used by most people (0700, 0900).
>
>Steve Adams

Thanks for the comments guys.

By way of clarification, the club is the British Canoe Union which
only has one head office and that's in Nottingham, and just about
anyone who has dealings with them knows this anyway, and it's
influence is national.

I still cannot see any problem from the organisation's point of view,
in just giving out a geographic number.  It just becomes confusing to
Joe Public when confronted with a contact number which is obviously
not geographic, and in the possible absence of details of call cost,
just how much is this call likely to cost?  And will it come out of my
inclusive mobile minutes or not?

Maybe I'm just to set in my ways but I believe it is totally
unnecessary!

Neil
(Press button B to get your money back!)

(Reply via NG please)

On Wed 30 Apr 2008 20:40:18, Peter Crosland wrote:
> 
> The whole point of the 03 prefix is that calls to them will be
> charged at the same rate as to terrestrial, 01 or 02 prefix,
> numbers that are distant enough to be a "national rate" call.
> Telecoms suppliers are not allowed to charge more for calls to 03
> prefix numbers than they do to 01 or 02 prefix. It really puts
> things back to the position before companies got greedy and 
> charged higher rates to 0870 prefix numbers. After a certain date
> the 03 prefix will replace the 0844, 0845 and 0870 prefiices
> 
> Peter Crosland
> 

I believe I read in an OFTEL press release that the discount schemes 
which a phone company has for it's local rate tariff should also apply 
to 0300 numbers.

Does this mean 18185/1899/18866 will charge the same price as they do 
to 01 and 02 numbers?

On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:54:14 +0100, Larousse  wrote:

>On Wed 30 Apr 2008 20:40:18, Peter Crosland wrote:
>> 
>> The whole point of the 03 prefix is that calls to them will be
>> charged at the same rate as to terrestrial, 01 or 02 prefix,
>> numbers that are distant enough to be a "national rate" call.
>> Telecoms suppliers are not allowed to charge more for calls to 03
>> prefix numbers than they do to 01 or 02 prefix. It really puts
>> things back to the position before companies got greedy and 
>> charged higher rates to 0870 prefix numbers. After a certain date
>> the 03 prefix will replace the 0844, 0845 and 0870 prefiices
>> 
>> Peter Crosland
>> 
>
>I believe I read in an OFTEL press release that the discount schemes 
>which a phone company has for it's local rate tariff should also apply 
>to 0300 numbers.
>
>Does this mean 18185/1899/18866 will charge the same price as they do 
>to 01 and 02 numbers?
Unless there has been a change they have been charging for 056 as for
01/02,  so I would guess that they will do the same for 03.

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