Isle of Man Phone Charges

Silk

pepdavies wrote: »

I wouldn't have known that 01624 was an IOM number, even though my geography is pretty good. I agree that they should use a different prefix to avoid confusion

This is what catches a lot of people out.
If you know your calling someone in the IOM fair enough but if you don't and you dial an 01624 number without knowing you can't blame them for assuming it would be charged as 01 standard charges.
BT charge it as standard UK landline AFAIK is included in the minutes and certainly PlusNet do.
It doesn't help with the likes of O2 who for pay monthly charge at 35p pm but on PAYG claim to charge as "UK Landline"

Tony5101

pepdavies wrote: »

I wouldn't have known that 01624 was an IOM number.....

And this is fair enough, however a totally seperate argument/case. The OP clearly knew they were calling the IOM, as they say so in their first post.

Ian011

Ofcom is currently involved in a massive project sorting out 084, 087, 09 and 118 numbers. Once that is finished one of their future tasks is to review 055, 056, 070 and 076 numbers. Apart from CI and IoM, and 0908 and 0909, these are the last of the non-standard numbers.

The key to CI and IoM numbers being inclusive is when the termination rates are the same or lower than for numbers in mainland UK, around 0.2p per minute for calls to landlines and around 0.7p per minute for calls to mobiles.

It may be useful to see what the CI and IoM regulators have to say about termination rates. In the UK these are capped by Ofcom regulation.

Ofcom and ASA require all landline and mobile operators to clearly list all exceptions in inclusive deals. Most do, but some of the smaller operators completely ignore this rule.

System

They should simply have their own country code.
All have their own internet country code - im je gg etc

Kernel_Sanders

Tony5101 wrote: »

This does not and should not stop people reading the Ts and Cs before they purchase an airplan, to see what is included and what isn't..

I know quite a bit about the Isle of Man, and have been there twice. I've never rung a landline there (from outside) so had no idea they don't have their own international prefix. Nobody (except you, apparently) reads every clause of small print on the T & Cs and this, coupled with the fact that in adverts and on websites charges are quoted for 01/02/03 numbers, makes the OP's complaint totally legitimate.

Tony5101 wrote: »

. The OP clearly knew they were calling the IOM, as they say so in their first post.

Now you're starting to make yourself look stupid. There's nothing at all on the OP that even suggests he knew he was calling the IoM yet you are saying there clearly is. The number could easily be from a classified ad or company info line.

Tony5101

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

I know quite a bit about the Isle of Man, and have been there twice. I've never rung a landline there (from outside) so had no idea they don't have there own international prefix. Nobody (except you, apparently) reads every clause of small print on the T & Cs and this, coupled with the fact that in adverts and on websites charges our quoted for 01/02/03 numbers, makes the OP's complaint totally legitimate.
Now you're starting to make yourself look stupid. There's nothing at all on the OP that even suggests he knew he was calling the IoM yet you are saying there clearly is. The number could easily be from a classified ad or company info line.

Don't be a plank mate...if you can't be bothered to read Ts and Cs and know what's included in your price plan, you can't whinge afterwards. How does that saying go...ignorance is no excuse? Please feel free to continue in your blissful world signing your life away with contracts you don't read.
The adverts quoting calls to 01/02/03 are shown in the UK, to go with the UK allowances...however following your logic I could complain about calls made to an 01 number in France and it not be included in my allowance? (France isn't UK, IoM isn't UK...starting to see a pattern here?)
And as for starting to look stupid...if the OP hadn't mentioned about being charged for calls to the IoM, then we probably wouldn't be having this conversation anyway. I'm assuming that you've read the first post where he says where the calls were to, and the subsequent posts about wife being from Zimbabwe and wouldn't be expected to know that IoM wasn't UK etc etc.
Facts are facts, and it's not about being smart about things. Bottom line is the IoM is not UK, and most phone operators will exclude calls from allowances.
If the first post had been along the lines of "I've been charged for calls to 01624 numbers, does anyone know why", then someone would have identified where the calls were to and answered, that's because it's the IoM and excluded from UK allowances blah blah blah...and effectively ending the conversation.

eDicky

The Channel Isles and Isle of Man are not part of the UK but they are part of the UK banking system for sort codes, BACS etc, and part of the UK national telephone network(?) and numbering system, postcodes and probably many other things.

The main point is that when dialling 01624 there is nothing to distinguish this from any other 01 number. So either all service providers should charge the call in the same way as they charge for other 01 numbers, or the prefix should be different for IoM. Consumers should not have to check a list of number prefixes and network T&Cs every time they call an unfamiliar number in order to avoid unexpected charges.

Even if call termination charges in CI and IoM are reduced in line with UK charges, networks will be free to continue charging extra if this anomaly is not rectified. As has been pointed out, some networks do not charge extra for such calls and never have, including my Orange pay-monthly where they are part of inclusive minutes.

So as far as I can see the OP's complaint is fully justified, but to whom it should officially be addressed is not so clear.

Ian011

Ofcom is gradually removing pricing anomalies.

Many networks have a set of prefixes which look like mobile numbers but which they call "non mobile numbers" and charge extra for. These are numbers used by various automated and interactive services. Some had termination rates as high as 15p per minute. On 1 May 2015, Ofcom imposed the same 0.68p per minute termination rate price cap on these numbers as applies to mobile numbers starting 071-075 and 077-079 thus removing the basis for higher retail prices and exclusion from inclusive deals.

These are the numbers which were non-inclusive on many networks:

074060, 074061, 074062, 074063, 074064, 074065, 074066, 074067, 074068, 074069, 074171, 074172, 074176, 074177, 074179, 074181, 074182, 074185, 074186, 074188, 074390, 074391, 074409, 074410, 074411, 074412, 074414, 074415, 074417, 074418, 074419, 074515, 074516, 074517, 074572, 074574, 074577, 074578, 074579, 074580, 074581, 074582, 074583, 074584, 074588, 074653, 074655, 075200, 075201, 075203, 075204, 075205, 075207, 075208, 075209, 075370, 075373, 075375, 075376, 075377, 075378, 075379, 075590, 075591, 075592, 075593, 075595, 075597, 075598, 075599, 075710, 075718, 075890, 075891, 075892, 075893, 075898, 075899, 077000, 077001, 077442, 077443, 077444, 077445, 077446, 077447, 077448, 077449, 077530, 077552, 077553, 077554, 077555, 078220, 078221, 078222, 078224, 078225, 078226, 078227, 078229, 078644, 078722, 078727, 078730, 078744, 078745, 078922, 078925, 078930, 078931, 078933, 078938, 078939, 079110, 079112, 079118, 079245, 079780, 079781, 079782, 079783, 079784, 079785, 079786, 079787, 079789.

Since 1 May 2015 these should have been treated as normal mobile numbers.


Ofcom is currently dealing with 084, 087, 09 and 118 numbers with a new system that comes into force on 1 July 2015. This aligns 0845 and 0870 pricing with other 084 and 087 numbers and aligns BT retail pricing with other landline providers.

On the same date, calls to 080 numbers become free from mobiles, thus removing another anomaly.

Ofcom has already announced the closure of the 0500 range in 2017. Existing users should be moving to the matching 0808 5 number.

They have also confirmed that the only range of non-geographic numbers to have pricing parity with calls to 01 and 02 numbers are those numbers starting 03.

Adult entertainment services now use numbers starting 098. There are some older services
using numbers starting 0908 and 0909. Presumably, these will be migrated to 098 some time in the future, much like the move that is happening with freephone numbers from 0500 to 0808 5.

At some point, Ofcom will review 055, 056, 070 and 076 numbers. These, especially 070, have pricing which can catch the unwary. Ofcom did the right thing by tackling 08 and 09 first, but these also need fixing.


Fixing CI and IoM will take a long time, if ever. For reference, the number ranges used in CI and IoM are these:

Landline
01481, 01534, 01624,
Mobile
074184,
074520, 074521, 074522, 074523, 074524, 074525, 074526,
074576,
075090, 075091, 075092, 075093, 075094, 075095, 075096, 075097,
07524,
07624,
077003, 077007, 077008,
077810, 077811, 077812, 077813, 077814, 077815, 077816, 077817, 077818, 077819,
077977, 077978, 077979,
078297, 078298, 078299,
078391, 078392, 078397, 078398,
079111, 079117,
079240, 079241, 079242, 079243, 079244, 079246, 079247, 079248, 079249,
079370, 079371, 079372, 079373, 079374, 079375, 079376, 079377, 079378, 079379.

The list of landline prefixes is easy enough to remember, but not the mobile prefixes.

Perhaps there's some merit in migrating the mobile numbers to e.g. 0760X, 0761X, 0762X.

Allocating 04 or 06 for this would be wasteful as that would allocate a billion phone numbers to places with a combined population of way less than a million.

There are sites and apps that will tell you what type of number you dialled before you press the call button. I guess these will become more popular.

d123

It really is a ridiculous situation, what average consumer would consider either of these as an international number?

01624-6756789 or 01642-6756789

Ian011

Similar anomalies occur in many other countries that have offshore territories or share a country code.

There are some islands in the Pacific that use the Australian country code but are charged as international calls from Australia.

There are some islands in the Arctic circle that use the Norwegian country code but are charged at international rate from Norway.

The most well known example, however, is North America where several dozen Caribbean nations and a couple more in the Pacific have ordinary looking area codes but are international calls from the US and Canada. These numbers are often used for various scams.

There are many other examples around the world. The UK is not unique in this situation.

You can be thankful that Ascension, Gibraltar and the Falklands, to name a few, do have their own country codes.

France has incorporated many of their overseas territories within their national number plan, including some in the Caribbean. Until recently Andorra and Monaco were part of the French number plan but now have their own country codes.

It's not all that long ago that calls to UK landline numbers were divided into local rate, regional rate and national rate. Everyone had to keep a list near their phone detailing which area codes belonged in which group. Calls to your own area code and those immediately adjacent were charged at local rate. Most people had two to seven area codes in this category. Area codes in a ring outside this were charged at regional rate. Most people had three to twelve area codes in the category. Outside this, calls were charged at national rate. All this was scrapped more than a decade ago when pricing was no longer linked to distance and callers were moved onto inclusive call plans. Calls to mainland destinations made outside of the inclusive call plan are charged at geographic rate. Nowadays, we no longer need to look up call prices for geographic numbers, except for those on offshore islands.