18866 still the cheapest?

almahadeus

The reason we complain despite the fact it is still a good deal is that we all know what happens when these companies broaden their customer base greatly. The usual story is that their services start to decline and their prices gradually go up. I am sure that true MSEs can think of so many examples of similar cases.

Edinburghlass_2

almahadeus wrote:

The reason we complain despite the fact it is still a good deal is that we all know what happens when these companies broaden their customer base greatly. The usual story is that their services start to decline and their prices gradually go up. I am sure that true MSEs can think of so many examples of similar cases.

Actually as a true MSE (?) I have used 18866 for 18 months and have found their prices to have gone down in that time for UK calls and have had no decline in the service.

andy88_2

edinburghlass wrote:

Actually as a true MSE (?) I have used 18866 for 18 months and have found their prices to have gone down in that time for UK calls and have had no decline in the service.

It's not a long time ago that the call rate was more than 0p per minute, so I think the people complaining about this increase are protesting too much. If used from a mobile the only effect of this is to use 1899 instead of 18866 for calls over 2 minutes when it was 4.

But it has made me look at my use. £3.81 since Boxing Day contains 192 offpeak calls. I hadn't bothered about the offpeak free minutes of Onetel or Talktalk yet; if I'm panicked about a potential increase of about £1.20 a month maybe I should, but I'm not in charge of the main phone bill.

almahadeus

edinburghlass wrote:

Actually as a true MSE (?) I have used 18866 for 18 months and have found their prices to have gone down in that time for UK calls and have had no decline in the service.

But how many customers did they have 18 months ago ? I am a great fan of 18866 and had actually recommended them to everyone I know but doubling their connection fee (masqueraded as a SRING SALE) is nothing but disappointing.

BexTech

I can't understand people complaining.

Some even saying they would rather pay 2p pence per minute because there is no connection charge, than pay ZERO pence per minute and 2p connection.

OK for extremely short calls you maybe better of paying the 2 pence for less than a minute.

When I joined 18866 over 14 months ago, they charged 1 pence per minute plus 1 pence connection. Now I would rather pay 1 pence per call, but even 2 pence is still good, and how many people thought 1p/min was un-sustainable back then, and then 0.5p/min and then 1p/call!!

I'm happy to use 1899's VoIP service, but I can't see that remaining completely free forever!

If people are concerned about getting through to those annoying voicemail / 1571 services, do as what I and many others do, tell them you don't call them because you don't feel you should be charged when a constant ringing tone or busy tone would do fine.

VickyA_2

2p per call is still alot less that I was paying just before Christmas. We've never had any problems with them, and since I pay the bill, I'll be sticking with 18866!

Rhino666

They are still very cheap but the email is an insult to our inteligence and they have given me a whole 2 days notice of their intention to double their charge on UK calls but.....

no point in doing anything rash unless there is a cheaper option and at the moment it appears that there is not !!

If I were to desert services in the UK on the basis of moral rather than financial reasons I wouldn't deal with anyone - they all have tiresome customer relations and general communication skills..... and why - because they can !!

Paul_Varjak

I'm still happy with 18866. I think, rather than being consistent with pricing they adjust according to the deals they can get for buying minutes across the network and the customer demand for making calls of inordinate length!

Having said that, when they refer to the 'Spring Sale', I think two of the destinations (Canada & Germany) were 1p/call but will now be 2p/call plus 1p/min! However, Australia is cheaper.

And, remember, although it is difficult keeping up with pricing changes, you can always have the announcement on to remind you when you call. Perosnally, I think that is a better arrangement than having higher but stable prices with no reminder of the call cost.

Smudge32

I think this thread is a lesson is keeping perspective on money saving. By all means, save money where you can, but when you start comparing onions that are 12p or 13p, or moaning about a 1p increase, then you've lost all perspective.

Note the information of the increase in the back of your mind, go out and play in the sunshine!

tair_bashir

Ok, so they're going up from 1p to 2p connection charge.....so what ? It's still 0p/min to UK landlines, so you can talk for ages for just 2p/call. Can you really argue ?

I've also got OneTel CPS on my landline (..yes, 18866 will still work with OneTel :-) I get FREE weekend calls to landlines through OneTel and use 18866 at other times...It's saved me a small fortune so far.