Why are Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man numbers non-inclusive and a different price?

Ian011

As ever, retail pricing of telephone calls depends on the termination rate that has to be paid out to the destination network. The lower this is, the more inclusive minutes can be allocated for any given price and the cheaper the out-of-bundle calls can be.

In the 1990s, Mobile Termination Rates were 25p per minute or more. Deals initially had no inclusive cross-network calls. As termination rates fell, cross-network calls began to be included. As the rates fell further, the number of inclusive minutes increased.

By 2009, Mobile Termination Rates had fallen to around 4p per minute at which point Ofcom intervened in the market. Since April 2010 they have forced further annual reductions, down to 0.84p per minute by April 2014. Effective 1 May 2015, Ofcom has capped the termination rate for calls to UK mobile numbers at 0.68p per minute and extended it to cover all UK providers. The eventual target for the latest round of cuts is 0.51p per minute from April 2017.

As these rates have fallen, the number of inclusive minutes for calls to 01, 02, 03, 071-075 and 077-079 numbers has risen dramatically.

Numbers with substantially higher termination rates are excluded from the allowances. These obviously include 070 and 076 numbers as their termination rates can be 40p per minute or more. The other set of numbers to be excluded are those used in Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man. These have termination rates in the range 1.2p to 1.5p per minute, substantially above the 0.21p per minute for calls to UK 01 and 02 numbers, 0.56p per minute for calls to UK 03 numbers and 0.68p per minute for calls to UK 071-075 and UK 077-079 numbers.

For reference, the prefixes used in Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man include:

Landlines: 01481, 01534, 01624

Mobiles: 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.

ASA requires phone providers to make clear whether their deals include or exclude CI and IoM numbers and to clearly list the affected prefixes and their prices. Not all of them do so.