Telephone Charges 8: Recent News
Note 6 of this series (06/05/2014) reported that businesses would soon have to provide an 01, 02 or 03 alternative to any 08 numbers quoted, which would benefit mainly mobile users. Reports at the time were inconsistent, but the situation is now clearer.
The rule that an 01, 02 or 03 number must be provided as an alternative to any 08 number does not apply to businesses selling gambling or running vending machines. It will not apply to businesses providing financial services until June 2015.
For other businesses (and financial services from June 2015), the requirement only applies to lines used by existing customers to clarify or complain about something they have bought or are in the process of buying. This leaves a lot of gaps in the legislation. Overall they would have done better to have stopped issuing new 0843, 0844, 0871, 0872 and 0873 numbers.
Finally, Note 5 of this series (03/05/2014) gave the cost of calling a normal mobile (i.e. NOT 070) within the UK for a Sky landline customer as 12 pence per minute plus a setting up fee of 15p. This was increased from 1st December 2014 to 12.7 pence per minute plus a setting up fee of 15.9p. The time is rounded to the higher minute and the total cost is rounded to the higher penny.
(19/02/2015)