London Blasts 0870 'helpline' generates revenue for Met Police!

lipidicman

Tessa Jowell said she was looking into the 40p a minute line this morning on the 'Today' programme.

April2

lipidicman wrote:

Tessa Jowell said she was looking into the 40p a minute line this morning on the 'Today' programme.

For some reason, I'm not holding my breath that Tessa "you know" (count the number of times she says that in any interview) Jowell will actually DO anything though.

bbb_uk

April2 wrote:

...count the number of times she says that in any interview...

I can't actually count that high!

pricefighter

April2 wrote:

For some reason, I'm not holding my breath that Tessa "you know" (count the number of times she says that in any interview) Jowell will actually DO anything though.

I am inclined to agree with you. but if she does will she do anything about the whole NGN problem,or just this specific number?

bbb_uk

pricefighter wrote:

I am inclined to agree with you. but if she does will she do anything about the whole NGN problem,or just this specific number?

I think we all know the answer to that one! Too many government departments would have to change their number if they addressed the whole problem.

pricefighter

Even the Home Office have not bothered to mention the Geographic number as of now.See http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/

Also a disaster fund has been launched by the Red Cross which of course an Excellent Idea. However someone has decided to use an 0870 contact number for it where the profits from it go to BT.(WHATEVER NEXT?) Will they never learn.

dag_2

Why do the Met Police,London Ambulance,London Government etc etc continue to promote this very expensive 0870 number?, even though a georaphical one is available

Well - right now, the Met are listing both numbers on their web site - and they specifically say that if you're calling from outside the UK, you should use the geographic number.

But they don't point out that the geographic number is leaps and bounds cheaper than the 0870. They also still list the 0870 first. Why?

C&W also said they're going to donate the profits - note they say profits, not revenues - to charity. Personally, I think that's too little too late. People shouldn't have had to pay the 0870 rates in the first place. Still, it's a step in the right direction - and I hope the egg on C&W's face will encourage them to think twice about allocating 0870 numbers to high-profile government organisations in the future.

bunking_off

dag wrote:

C&W also said they're going to donate the profits - note they say profits, not revenues - to charity. Personally, I think that's too little too late. People shouldn't have had to pay the 0870 rates in the first place. Still, it's a step in the right direction - and I hope the egg on C&W's face will encourage them to think twice about allocating 0870 numbers to high-profile government organisations in the future.

I think when they say profits they probably mean "margin" - which is the money they receive minus the outpayments they have to make to other operators. That's slightly more than profit, because e.g. it effectively means that they'll be allowing the use of their own network for free. However, given they've had to pay out to other networks for the calls, I guess their argument is that they should be able to subtract that much.

From the article in the Daily Mail, it does seem that C&W offered the authorities the option of using 0845 or 0800 numbers, but said that they'd have to pay for the calls : this was declined in favour of the 0870 number.

Leaving C&W to one side, a lot of the more dramatic headlines about this have been around charges of 40 or 50ppm being levied...this is for calls from mobiles. In these situations, the way that the telco accounting system works is that C&W (and the 0870 number holder) receive the same inpayment regardless of where the call was originated - ie the extra 32/42ppm versus a landline call is pocketed by the mobile provider. I wonder if Vodafone etc will similarly be making a donation?

bbb_uk

bunking_off wrote:

...a lot of the more dramatic headlines about this have been around charges of 40 or 50ppm being levied...this is for calls from mobiles. In these situations, the way that the telco accounting system works is that C&W (and the 0870 number holder) receive the same inpayment regardless of where the call was originated - ie the extra 32/42ppm versus a landline call is pocketed by the mobile provider. I wonder if Vodafone etc will similarly be making a donation?

C&W only agreed to hand back their profit from the use of this number due to complaints and bad publicity from the newspapers, etc. An 0870 shouldn't have been used but that isn't C&W fault but the governments (PITO is getting the main blame). They (PITO) have not as yet made any comment on this (as far as i'm aware) despite constant emails and even enquiries from the newspapers, etc.

I'm actually trying to find out the main (or someone higher up the chain than general customer services) to whom an email regarding this can be sent. I hope they (the networks) also decide to donate the profits from this to the charity that will be setup regarding this same as C&W have pledged.

pricefighter

bbb_uk wrote:

I'm actually trying to find out the main (or someone higher up the chain than general customer services) to whom an email regarding this can be sent.

The people to contact at the big 4 are

Peter Erskine. CEO. O2
Sanjiv Ahuja.. CEO. Orange.
Brian McBride.MD. T Mobile.
Arun Sarin. CEO. Vodafone.

Sorry dont have there e-mail addresses.