Days are numbered for costly 0870 calls after Ofcom ruling

THE cost of calling numbers with the prefix 0870 will be slashed to the same price as regular national calls under a crackdown announced yesterday by the telecoms watchdog.

Under new rules, aimed at ending the widespread confusion over costs, mobile and fixed-line phone companies will be forced to charge the same, or less, for 0870 calls as they do for regular numbers.

Any companies that want to charge more must make a free announcement at the start of the call.

The practice of “revenue sharing”, which allows companies to boost their profits by replacing their traditional number with an 0870 number and forcing customers to call that number instead will also be scrapped. Businesses, doctors’ surgeries and government departments have introduced the numbers, prompting complaints from consumers. There have been accusations that callers are held-up unnecessarily on the line purely to help to boost profits.

In addition an 03 number range, which can be used countrywide but will be charged at a regular call rate, will be introduced. Ofcom hopes that public bodies and some businesses will swap to this number from 0870.

Consumers are estimated to have spent £1.5 billion in 2004 calling 0870 and 0845 numbers — almost £1 in every £5 spent on all landline phone calls.

Ofcom said that the changes should “significantly reduce” the price of calls to 0870 numbers.

It would also allow for 0870 calls to be included in call packages. At present they are usually exempt. However, the slow introduction of the changes — they will not take effect until early 2008 — will anger some consumer groups. Ofcom said phone companies needed time to implement them.

Both the prefixes 0845 and 0870 were intended at first to provide businesses with a memorable nationwide number. Calls, when the numbers were introduced ten years ago, were charged at a typical national rate for 0870 and a local rate for 0845.

But as competition has surged, and the cost of local and national calls has come down, these numbers are still being advertised that way — misleading customers and causing confusion. Calls to the numbers can now cost up to three times as much as contacting a regular number.

A daytime call to an 0870 number on BT’s most popular package costs 7.51p per minute compared with 3p a minute for calling a regular geographic number.