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London Blasts 0870 'helpline' generates revenue for Met Police!
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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'm also aware that people sometimes have to pay 30p per minute for calls to geographic numbers from their mobiles anyway. Saying that the calls cost 40p per minute makes for a very good headline - however, if it was a geographic number, people would be expecting to pay 30p per minute to it from their mobile - so you wouldn't have had the headlines.
To be honest, I think C&W walked right into this one.
Some people have said that 0870 numbers can take lots of calls at the same time - but why is this not possible with a geographic number? If the 0870 number's facilities were really that good, then why couldn't the Met simply divert a geographic number to an 0870 number, and pick up the tab for it themselves? Somehow, I don't think 0870 numbers are that good.
My point is - the extra functionality that 0870 numbers are supposed to offer do not justify the higher rates for it.
If people get an engaged tone - they'll retry. But many of those who phoned the 0870 number had their calls routed to staff outside London, who had no idea what was happening, and who could only tell them to try again when it was less busy.An 0870 shouldn't have been used but that isn't C&W fault but the governments (PITO is getting the main blame).
If a public sector body has no money, they will go for the cheapest option available. Corrupt industries who provide services to the government will bid low to try to win the contract, but then try to cream money off it in other ways. 0870 numbers are an obvious example. That's why we need a regulator.0 -
pricefighter wrote: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.
I have emailed all the above and kindly asked them if they would consider donating the profit they got from their customers calling the helpline. I have had no emails returned yet saying unknown recipient so I hope I have guessed their email addresses accurately.
I also included some other newspapers in this especially the The Mirror as it was them that appear to have got Cable&Wireless to donate their profits from this call to charity.
For those interested in this a bit more (including exactly who I emailed) then read this post from the SayNoTo0870.com forum.0 -
dag wrote:Some people have said that 0870 numbers can take lots of calls at the same time - but why is this not possible with a geographic number?
It's totally possible - in fact it's not long since I set up a europewide call centre for a customer which all runs via a standard geographic number in Edinburgh (although all countries have a freephone number pointed at it) and it has the capacity for 300 simultaneous inbound calls - all on the same geographic number.There are 10 types of people in the world, those that understand binary and those that don't
In many cases it helps if you say where you are - someone with local knowledge might be able to give local specifics rather than general advice0 -
As Hunnymonster points out on modern networks it is possible to have a georaphical no which has the same advanced features as a ngn one.So this excuse is out of the window.
In fact in the latest COI guidance notes about Govt Contact Centres use of 0870 numbers.it tells people responsible for the setting up,and management of centres this fact!!!PF.0 -
OK, I'll bite on this. You *can* have a geographic number with fancy call routing features. Quite a few telephone companies offer these. The catch is that the revenues from the caller don't cover the cost of doing it, so the called party has to make a contribution : and in my experience they're not willing to do so (or at least are rarely willing to do so).
What doesn't work very well is having a geographic number with focussed calling events. Hunnymonster, with respect, 300 simultaneous calls is not very much compared to the wave of calls that are seen when a number is given out on TV...try a factor of 100 on that and you're nearer the mark (in extreme I've heard of a 1000 times that for e.g. the type of Saturday night shows where the vote only lasts for 20 minutes).
In the UK numbers are routed on a 10,000 number block level. For geographic numbers, "far end handover" applies. This means e.g. if you make a call on Telewest to a BT 020 number block, the call will be routed by Telewest to London in their network, using only the 020 part. At London, the switches look more deeply, recognise it's a BT block, and hand the call over. If Telewest were to hand the call over to BT at the originating end (e.g. north of England), they'd have to pay BT approx 3 x as much to terminate the call (in technical speak, they'd pay "Double Tandem Long" instead of "Local Exchange Segment" charging). In BT's network, the 020 xxxx digits are then used to terminate the call to the relevant exchange, with the final 4 digits being used on that exchange to select the correct line. As has been said, it is perfectly possible for fancy call routing functions to be put on the terminating exchange : there just isn't any demand for it.
Contrast this with a Telewest customer calling a BT non-geographic (08) number. In this case, based on 0870 xxx, Telewest recognise at the origin that the number is a BT one and hand the call over immediately. BT immediately pass this to their intelligent network (IN), where the fancy call routing kicks in to distribute the calls, e.g. 50% to a London centre, 25% to Birmingham, 25% Manchester etc. In some cases, there can be direct linkage into the end customer's equipment to detect whether there are any free lines in the primary centre (London) and send elsewhere if there aren't.
Now, let's compare what happens when there's a focussed calling event. In the geographic case, all the calls will converge on the terminating exchange in BT's network, regardless of where the origin is. Regardless of any fancy routing at that exchange, such a wave of calls can knock the switch over. Feel free not to believe me, but before Wembley box office was put on a non-geo number it used to happen regularly. In the non-geo case, calls from e.g. Leeds are handled by BT's IN in Leeds, from Manchester by BT's IN in Manchester etc....as such the calls never converge to a single point hence the risk of failure is that much less. Coupled with this, there are protection measures in the networks to limit the calls to 08/09 numbers when there are too many calls - in my example Telewest would block calls on the originating exchange.
The only way I can see that a geo number can have the same resilience as a non-geo number would be if operators were to near-end handover such ranges to the terminating carrier. However, that would break the fundamental economics of how calls are costed and routed - this isn't a UK specific setup, but the general principle followed everywhere for call routing. Such a change isn't going to happen.I really must stop loafing and get back to work...0 -
bunking_off,
that sounded great! What did it mean?...and then the window licker said to me...0 -
I understood (most of) that thanks bunking_off.
However, can you do another version factoring in PNN and/or GTN?Their - possessive pronoun (owned by them e.g. "They locked their car").
They're - colloquial/abbreviated version of 'They are'
There - noun (location other than here e.g. "You can buy groceries there") OR adverb (in or at that place e.g. "They have lived there for years") OR adverb (to or towards that place e.g. "Go there at noon") OR adverb (in that matter e.g. " I agree with you there").0 -
Just for the record all of us in this family think it was outrageous to use a premium rate number for information on this terrible tragedy. Surely the government could have funded an 0800 number in this situation. I too am going to write and complain to anyone I can get the e-mail address of. I will NOT be trying to telephone!!."0844 COSTS YOU MORE"0
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theloft wrote:Just for the record all of us in this family think it was outrageous to use a premium rate number for information on this terrible tragedy. Surely the government could have funded an 0800 number in this situation. I too am going to write and complain to anyone I can get the e-mail address of. I will NOT be trying to telephone!!.
Go to the https://www.saynoto0870.com site,and read the extremely lengthy thread on the subject,which contains lots of useful e-mail addresses you can complain to.PF.0 -
April2 wrote:However, can you do another version factoring in PNN and/or GTN?
Wouldn't claim to know much about the GTN, and if I did to be honest I wouldn't be crass enough to detail it on a site like this.
Suffice to say that it's a private (secure) network.
For inbound calls, calls are made to geo numbers to the principles I outlined above apply : calls from the general public to e.g. a London geo number that's hosted on GTN would route as I outline above.
For outbound calls, on private networks there is the flexibility that the call is carried as far as possible on the private network....in other words it behaves much as Telewest does above - it's a way of making all outbound calls be locally tariffed as they only hit the public network at the last minute.
I wouldn't wish to comment how GTN/PNN in particular routes.
I apologise if any of this is overly complex - I did try to keep it simple but it's very difficult without a whiteboard - perhaps it explains why teletraffic engineers tend to be degree educated and specialists in their field (and no, I wouldn't term myself a teletraffic engineer). I'd admit to finding it mildly irritating that no-one would dream of visiting their GP and telling them how to practise medicine. Yet, it takes 10 years to become a chartered engineer and everyone seems willing to contend that they know better what networks can do than the engineers in the phone companies.I really must stop loafing and get back to work...0
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