Site History from 1996
Version 142 in late February 2010 adds 24Talk (residential), Daisy Communications (business), eZe-Talk (residential), IDNet (business and residential), OneBill Telecom (business) and TopUpDial (residential) and updates BT, Continental Telecom (business), My Mondo (residential), Phone Co-Op (business and residential), PlusNet (residential), Saga (residential) and Simply-Fone (residential).
From 5th February 2010, BT has increased the residential call set-up fee slightly from 9.25p to 9.30p per call, presumably for easier VAT rounding. From 1st April 2010, BT making residential price changes, increasing the call-set-up fee to 9.9p, daytime inland calls to 5.9p/min, and moving the daytime charging period one hour later to 7am to 7pm (which mainly effects mobile and international calls). Also from 1st April 2010, Virgin Media is increasing some residential prices, line rental is up 99p to £11.99/month, call setup is up 1p to 11p per call, and inland and mobile charges are increasing 1p/min. These April changes are not yet reflected in the tariff comparison.
For paid members, the spreadsheet includes two new sheets, Line Rentals and Tariffs, which replace the current Packages sheets with greater detail, some of which was previously available in Notes. Line Rentals has about 36 columns including rental and connection charges for analogue and ISDN lines and most common network and feature options such as CLI. Tariffs has about 49 columns many of which are Yes/No detailing features of each package including type of billing offered, broadband offerings, and contract and spend limits. Please note the content of these new sheets will take a few months to verify for all the various operators. The new content is not yet available on the web pages, but will appear (in non tabular form) in a major site redesign due shortly. Also, the call price sheets have new rows for capped calls, changes in some time band names and some changed tariff and operator names, to provide consistency between various sheets. Most of these changes were done for a new tariff SQL database that will be announced shortly.
Version 141 in late January 2010 adds 1301 (residential), and updates BT, 05pence (residential), 118185.co.uk (residential), 1899.com (residential), Abroadcall(residential), AbroadTel (residential), ACN (residential), Adept Telecom (business), Call 18866 (residential), Direct Save Telecom (residential and business), ICUK (business and residential), Kingston Communications, Post Office (residential), Scottish & Southern Energy (residential), Sky Talk (residential), TalkTalk (residential), Tesco (residential), Yellow Telecoms (business) and Vonage (residential).
Ofcom is introducing a new short number 111 for non-emergency health services, which will be free to the caller.
British Telecom is introducing new directory bands DQ113 and DQ114, and Wifi FW10. Band DQ112 for 118118 costs 85p for the first minute, then 35p/min, each about 5p more than the old DQ109 band.
Version 140 in late December 2009 updates BT, Cheapest Chat (residential), Euphony (residential), Pipex HomeCall (residential), Phone Co-Op (residential), PlusNet Home Phone (residential), Post Office (residential), Resource Utilities (business), Simply-Fone (residential), Skype (PC only residential), TalkTalk (residential), Telecom Plus (residential), Tiscali (residential), Virgin Media (residential) and Yourcalls.net (residential). Maxtalk appears to have disappeared and has been removed.
Value Added Tax reverts from 15% to it's original rate of 17.5% from 1st January 2010, so all residential prices including VAT have been increased appropriately. Unlike the reduction 12 months ago, it's not expected that many companies will ignore the VAT change and effectively cut prices. Some companies had pricing that, once updated, were nicely rounded price points (like 10p call set-up for Virgin Media), while other companies will be rounding prices up, or maybe down (Virgin Media has absorbed the VAT increase for rentals), over the coming weeks.
Version 139 in late November 2009 updates BT (business), Call 18866 (residential), 118185.co.uk (residential), 1899.com (residential), CF1 Telecom (business), Post Office (residential), and Virgin Media (residential).
BT business has increased many business call costs from 1st December 2009, a month after increasing line rental. For BT Standard, call set-up is up to 8p, local peak up to 6.5p/min, and peak mobile up to 14p/min. For BT Business Plan, all inland, mobile and international call costs are up about 20% for spending levels of £5,000/month and less. Currently, call prices for Business One Plan (and variants) appear unchanged, despite previously being similar to Business Plan.
There are major numbering database changes, with almost double to number of records and vastly improved locality information. The main allcodes table now includes numbers that are currently free, reserved or protected, as well as allocated, indicated by a new Status column. The localities table now includes the full postal postal code separately to the previous partial code, which is for the 'centre' of the locality, there are also grid eastings and northings (in metres) and latitude and longitude of the locality (except for some islands). Numerous area code names have been updated to mostly match those now used by Ofcom rather than the original BT names, and this change removes all duplicate names for four digit areas. Note some Ofcom area names have been ignored or changed, due to spelling errors or because the name referred to an exchange in a different area. The locality names have been improved, with all postal code changes in the last 10 years reflected, many moved to the correct postal towns and strange names corrected. Note some county names are yet to be updated. Some of these changes are in preparation for a new SQL database that will be announced early next year and which will include tariff information.
Version 138 in late October 2009 add Wizards (business and residential), and updates BT Business, AOL Talk (residential), Orange (residential), PlusNet Home Phone (residential), Scottish & Southern Energy (residential), Simply-Fone (residential) and TalkTalk (residential), Swiftcall has been removed due to KDDI Europe discontinuing prepaid services from 30th November 2009.
BT has increased business line rental from 1st November 2009, an analogue line is up 2.5% to £15.24/month, ISDN-2e £34.47 and ISDN-30e to £16.90 per channel. BT Business One Plan Inclusive now includes free inland calls (500 minutes/months) although this seems to be a restricted period offer to next April, also a new Unlimited Call Plan for between £12.50 and £22.50/month depending on plan type and spend level that includes unlimited inland and international calls to about 200 countries (max one hour).
Ofcom is introducing three new 116 helpline numbers, 11600 for a missing children helpline, 116111 for ChildLine and 116123 for the Samaritans.
Version 137 in late September 2009 updates BT, Andrews & Arnold (business and residential), Axis Telecom (business and residential), Demon (business), Direct Save Telecom (residential and business), Euphony (residential), Kingston Communications, Saga (residential), Sky Talk (residential), Virgin Media (residential) and Vonage (residential). Demon Voice over Broadband has been removed since the service is ceasing. AOL, Scottish & Southern Energy and TalkTalk are increasing call cost from November.
BT residential has increased the call set-up cost from 8p to 9.05p, and daytime inland calls from 4.5p to 5.25p/min, so a 30 second daytime call now costs 14.3p. This is the second set-up increase this year, last September it was only 6p.
BT business has doubled the surcharge for payment processing other than direct debit to £3/month and increased the paper free billing to £3/month credit.
Following a recent rule relaxation by Ofcom, BT is now offering combined Calls and Broadband plans. Get Connected costs £16.65/month combining Unlimited Evening and Weekend Plan and BT Total Broadband Option 1 (up to 20 meg), Home and Away costs £24.46/month combining Unlimited Evening and Weekend Plan and BT Total Broadband Option 3 (up to 20 meg and BT Mobile Broadband), Unlimited costs £29.41/month combining Unlimited Anytime Plan and BT Total Broadband Option 3 (up to 20 meg). All prices exclude BT line rental, require an 18 month contract, include a BT Home Hub, broadband dongle extra.
Version 136 in late August 2009 updates BT Business, 0844 Calls (residential), ICUK (business and residential), Jersey Telecom (residential), Kingston Communications, Phone Cheap (residential), Phone Co-Op (residential), Post Office (residential), Sky Talk (residential), TeleSavers (residential) and TopUpNow (residential). Carphone Warehouse TalkTalk is now just TalkTalk.
There are a lot of changes on the State of the Industry page this month, including Redstone, Symphony, AT Communications and Eurotel being taken over by Daisy Group. The Telecom Links page has been cleaned of many old and changed links.
BT has increased BT Commitment business inland and mobile call charges by about 10%, and increased the minimum call charge for Option 1 to 4p. Otherwise very quiet.
Version 135 in late July 2009 updates BT and Adept Telecom (residential). Vectone no longer publishes UK prices so has been removed. VoIP4U has been removed for old tariffs. This has been a very quiet month, apart from BT there are no changes from any of the major operators, although some are pending for September.
New Ofcom 0870 regulations finally come into effect from 1st August 2009 when revenue sharing should cease and all operators should charge 0870 calls at the same price as 01/02/03 calls. Ofcom first published this proposal in April 2006, almost three and half years ago, the long delay before implementation was mostly down to industry being reluctant to forego the massive 0870 revenues. BT is fully implementing the new 0870 regulations, but no other OLO has yet published new price lists. Many OLOs already offer free 0845/0870 calls on packages with free 01/02/03 calls. OLOs that want to continue charging more than geographic rate for 0870 must not use 'national rate' as the description and must publicise the higher cost.
Since revenue sharing on 0870 numbers is now reduced to the same as 03 numbers, any businesses still publishing 0870 numbers may need to pay 1p or more per minute for incoming calls to be diverted to their real number or otherwise handled. Most companies have been migrating from 0870 to 0844 or 0871 numbers for this reason.
Also from 1st August 2009, PhonepayPlus (ICSTIS) will take over regulation of 0871/0872/0873 numbers which will be formally be recognised as Premium Rate Services. All 087 service providers need to register with PhonepayPlus by 31st July 2009.
Ofcom has proposed a new number 111 for a Department of Health non-emergency healthcare helpline.
BT has reduced the monthly fee for the residential Unlimited Anytime Calling Plan by £1 a month to £4.95, or £17.45 per month including line rental. BT has introduced a new personal number charge band PN22 to which some personal numbers that used to be charged at 'national rate' are moving.
The UK Telecom Tariff Cost Comparisons web site recently moved from Magenta Systems Ltd main site at http://www.magsys.co.uk to it's own http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/ domain. The new site uses a different back end server, which will ease many improvements planned for the next three months. The only obvious difference at the moment is all pages with ASP URLs are now HTM instead. For members, the login system has been improved so you will be remembered between visits and will only need to login once instead of separately for different parts of the site. The main index pages now show if you are logged-in and allow log-off if the PC is shared. Logged-in members now have unrestricted access to Online CodeLook bypassing the daily usage restriction.
Numbering members should note that 03 calls are listed by BT as charge band G21 but are mostly charged as national calls so have been given a new charge band B4 to distinguish them. 0870 calls used to be national rate charge band B2 and while this band has been discontinued by BT it has been retained in the database since not all OLOs are charging 0870 the same as national calls.
Version 134 in late June 2009 updates BT, 05pence (residential), Abroadcall (residential), AbroadTel (residential), Clever Rates (residential), First:Telecom (residential), PhoneBird (residential), Pipex HomeCall (residential), Post Office (residential) and Simply-Fone (residential).
BT has increased the cost of calling it's own 118 directory enquiry services, and the operator service charge.
The UK Telecom Tariff Cost Comparisons web site is moving from the Magenta Systems Ltd domain, to it's own http://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/ domain. Both sites are currently duplicated with the same content, the old site will be dropped in a couple of weeks. The new site uses a different back end server, which will ease many improvements planned for the next three months. The only obvious difference at the moment is all pages with ASP URLs are now HTM instead. For members, the login system has been improved so you will be remembered between visits and will only need to login once instead of separately for different parts of the site. The main index pages now show if you are logged-in and allow log-off if the PC is shared. Logged-in members now have unrestricted access to Online CodeLook bypassing the daily usage restriction.
Version 133 in late May 2009 updates BT, 0844 Calls (residential), 118185.co.uk (residential), 1899.com (residential), ACN (residential), Call 18866 (residential), Carphone Warehouse TalkTalk (residential), Easy-Dial (residential), Orange (residential), Post Office (residential), Telecom Plus (residential), Virgin Media (residential), VoIPCheap (residential) and Work-Phones (business). Residential operators that are now offering free 0845 and 0870 calls if 01/02/03 are free (and usually the same cost as 01/02/03 otherwise) include BT, ACN, Carphone Warehouse TalkTalk, Post Office. Note free 0845 calls exclude dialup internet and indirect access numbers.
BT has increased the cost of most standard business calls, that is calls from lines not opted into a discount scheme such as BT Business Plan. Call set-up charge is up 2p to 7p per call, local and national calls up to 1p/min more, UK mobile up 1.2p/min, and international calls from 5p to 25p/min more. A one minute business national call now costs 16.99p before VAT. Strangely, national calls now cost almost 50% more than 0870.
Ofcom is reviewing possible changes to premium rate services, such as requiring pre-call announcements, for advertisements to include not just the BT cost of calling a number but also the name and cost of the most expensive provider (which may be double than of BT), improving the PhonepayPlus number checker to more easily identify service providers and maintaining a better registration scheme for parties in the supply chain to ease reputation checks.
Version 132 in late April 2009 updates BT, Adept Telecom (business), Carphone Warehouse TalkTalk (residential), Cheapest Chat (residential), Direct Save Telecom (residential and business), Pipex HomeCall (residential), PlusNet Home Phone (residential), Primus (residential), Simply-Fone (residential), Tiscali (residential), Vonage (residential), XLN Telecom (business) and Yourcalls.net (residential). Sainsbury's is no longer reselling TalkTalk and has been removed. Carphone Warehouse TalkTalk, Orange and Post Office all have increases due 1st June which will be published next month. Virgin Media was supposed to be increasing prices on 1st May, but nothing has yet been published nor have customers been informed of any changes.
Ofcom has announced new 0870 regulations that come into effect from 1st August 2009, when revenue sharing should cease and all operators should charge 0870 at the same price as 01/02/03 calls. This is just the latest date published in the three years Ofcom has been trying and failing to change 0870 regulation.
BT has added another directory enquiry band that costs £3.60 for the first minute and another WIFI band. Most other operators now charge more than BT for non-geographic numbers such as 118, 0844, 0871, 09, etc, sometimes double BT's price. The new directory enquiry band costs £6 for the first minute by Pipex Homecall for instance.
Version 131 in late March 2009 updates BT, AOL Talk (residential), Carphone Warehouse TalkTalk (residential), HIGHnet (business), Kingston Communications, Post Office (residential), Scottish & Southern Energy (residential), Sky Talk (residential), Solwise Telephony (business) and Tiscali (residential).
BT has changed most residential tariffs from 1st April 2009, rounding many prices up or down to cleaner price points after the forced VAT reduction last December. Residential line rental has increased by £1/month to £12.50/month, or £11.25/month with paperless billing. Day time inland calls are up just over half a penny to 4.5p/min. Most international calls are rounded down to the nearest half penny. BT has abandoned it's oldest discount scheme Friends & Family, that variously offered 5, 10 or 20% discount off one, five or 10 commonly called numbers. Instead, International Saver has been renamed Friends & Family International, and Mobile Saver to Friends & Family Mobile, both offer cheaper calls for a low monthly fee. Connection cost for a new residential line has increased to £122.50 and the cost of calling features (such as Caller Display and Call Waiting) is increasing by 79p/month to £2.50/month each.
BT has added two more directory enquiry bands, and BT Business One Plan Traditional, a scheme similar to BT Business One Plan but no requirement to take BT Broadband or BT Mobile. Has a lower £200 annual spend tier with local calls at 3.5p/min, £500 is 2.7p/min, inland calls price cap is 10p, UK mobile price cap is 25p.
A few operators have followed BT and increased rentals and UK call charges this month, others are following in May.