PRIMUS and calls to mobiles

apwood

pricefighter wrote:

Toucan line rental of 8.99 a month requires you to sign a 1 year contract.It does not include caller display which they charge extra for.

Anyone who has BT Privacy will get Caller Display for free when they transfer to Toucan (I get it for free from Toucan).

If you want no ties, then you can pay 9.99 a month. If you like the service you can then change to the 8.99 a month service. So far the service has been fine, but I will only transfer to the 8.99 service after a couple of months when I can be certain. The credit of £85 I will get by joining Toucan (£10 as a new member, £25 for each family member who also joins on my recommendation) will ensure that a) I will have no need to go elsewhere to get cheaper calls within the first year and b) even if I continue to pay £9.99 per month I will save much more via Toucan than via Primus.

pricefighter wrote:

Toucan apply a 3p connection charge to calls to 0845.0870 numbers on top of the per minute call rates.

Toucan charge by the minute.

Yes, I know they charge by the minute, and my calculations take this into account, but it still works out cheaper.

Yes, I know they charge 3p to connect 0845 and 0870 calls. Again, my calculations take this into account. These calls cost me just under £2 per year more by Toucan than by Primus. However, I will dial 1280 (actually the Orchid dialler will do it for me) and route these calls mostly via BT (cheaper than both Primus and Toucan for these calls).

In fact by using the Orchid dialler to route calls to the best of 18185, 1899 and 1280 (BT), I will save £30 on top of the £85 credit Toucan will give me.

Heinz

apwood wrote:

Yes, I know they charge 3p to connect 0845 and 0870 calls. Again, my calculations take this into account. These calls cost me just under £2 per year more by Toucan than by Primus. However, I will dial 1280 (actually the Orchid dialler will do it for me) and route these calls mostly via BT (cheaper than both Primus and Toucan for these calls).

In fact by using the Orchid dialler to route calls to the best of 18185, 1899 and 1280 (BT), I will save £30 on top of the £85 credit Toucan will give me.

How will the 1280 part of that strategy work when you no longer have a BT (line rental) account?

apwood

I can confirm that not only do Toucan actually say on their website that you can use indirect suppliers using 1280, 1899, 18185 etc, these are all working for me using my Orchid dialler and my line rental is already with Toucan.

Don't forget, its still the same physical BT line going through the same physical routers and exchange, the only difference is that Toucan are paying BT wholesale prices for the line and then I'm paying line rental to Toucan, instead of BT, at a discount. Its not the same as say transferring to Kingston Communications, or a cable company telphone line, as in that case its physically a different line, going through a different exchange.

Of course if Toucan changed their rules, after say 6 months and then blocked indirect access, I would have to pay more if I was locked in to a 12 month contract. That would only cost me £15 extra in telephone calls, which is easily made up for by the £85 credit I'm getting from them up front.

Its also unlikely that they will block the 1280 code to route calls back via BT (though they could decide to start blocking the others).

I can't lose and Toucan will save me far more money than any other company.

apwood

Note for clarification -

1) I will continue to have a BT account - but for telephone calls only, not line rental.

2) Its still a BT line for CPS purposes, so I can quickly and easily transfer to another provide (eg Primus) if, after say a year, Toucan are no longer best for me.

Heinz

apwood wrote:

1) I will continue to have a BT account - but for telephone calls only, not line rental.

2) Its still a BT line for CPS purposes, so I can quickly and easily transfer to another provide (eg Primus) if, after say a year, Toucan are no longer best for me.

I undertsand you will still (in effect) have a BT line even though you'll be paying rental to someone else but I wasn't aware BT allowed 'calls only' accounts.

Interesting.

clark1982

Heinz wrote:

I undertsand you will still (in effect) have a BT line even though you'll be paying rental to someone else but I wasn't aware BT allowed 'calls only' accounts.

Interesting.

BT DON'T allow customers on WLR to use 1280, As the line rental is billed by another provider. BT have no way to bill for the calls made through 1280, when the customer is on WLR. best check with your new provider, as these calls will not begoing through BT!

apwood

clark1982 wrote:

BT DON'T allow customers on WLR to use 1280, As the line rental is billed by another provider. BT have no way to bill for the calls made through 1280, when the customer is on WLR. best check with your new provider, as these calls will not begoing through BT!

I think you might be right - 0845 and 0870 calls (made by dialling the 1280 prefix) are being billed by Toucan, despite the fact that on their website it says:

Question - Can I override my ToucanTalk service once my telephone has been diverted to Toucan?
Answer - Yes, you can use BT at any time by dialing 1280 before the number you want to dial. BT will charge you for these calls.

I will ask about this. However, even if all such calls do go via Toucan it will only cost me about £2 extra per year, probably less now I'm making use of "saynoto0870" to get geographic numbers instead.

apwood

A correction.

Since I'm (successfully) putting my daytime 0845 and 0870 calls over 18185 (and this works out cheaper despite the 4p connection charge than Toucan, BT and Primus), the actual amount I will pay extra for the remaining 0845 and 0870 calls going over Toucan rather than Primus works out at only 43 pence in the year (including VAT) (not £2).

I will however have to pay more for 087x and 084x calls that can't go via BT. These calls are charged by both Primus and Toucan at BT rates, but Toucan is more expensive due to the fact they charge per minute. This will cost me an extra 8p per year via Toucan.

So overall I will probably pay another 50p per year since I can't use 1280 to route calls over BT. In practice it might be less than this because I'm now using SayNoTo0870 to save money on these types of calls.

Steve_xx

apwood wrote:

I think you might be right - 0845 and 0870 calls (made by dialling the 1280 prefix) are being billed by Toucan, despite the fact that on their website it says:



I will ask about this. However, even if all such calls do go via Toucan it will only cost me about £2 extra per year, probably less now I'm making use of "saynoto0870" to get geographic numbers instead.

If you have your line rental with Toucan then you will not be able to use 1280 to reroute via BT. Regardless of what you said earlier about the line being physically on BT's exchange, it is Toucan who bill you, and not BT.

Quote:
Question - Can I override my ToucanTalk service once my telephone has been diverted to Toucan?
Answer - Yes, you can use BT at any time by dialing 1280 before the number you want to dial. BT will charge you for these calls.

The crucial word here is "diverted", as opposed to transfer of exchange line to Toucan.

However, you would be able to revert to BT if you took Toucans 'calls only' offering. This is because you would retain your line rental, and therefore your account, with BT.

Heinz

apwood wrote:

These calls are charged by both Primus and Toucan at BT rates, but Toucan is more expensive due to the fact they charge per minute.

Having changed to Primus (CPS) last year, I checked their 084/7 charges.

Their reply showed they were in a real muddle (and, with luck, still are). They replied that they charge the same for all 0870/0871 calls and for all 0844/0845 calls - apparently not realising that they are losing money on calls to 10p/minute 0871 and 5p/minute 0844 numbers!

However, they charge (I expect Toucan do the same) BT non-discounted rates for such calls so, although it's true to say they charge BT rates, they charge the BT rates that almost nobody pays any more!