David Behan's Web Design Ireland Blog

David

It’s not our fault that your telephone provider doesn’t included 1850 / 1890 numbers in their “minutes”. You can hardly expect us all to fork out for 1800 calls … It would cost us a fortune!

Michele

Dave

I understand you entirely, but I think the way you worded it was a bit naive. You should have asked business to use their regional STD codes NOT demand an 1800

Michele

We’ve had a 1800 since day-1 and found it an invaluable sales tool as well as a valued support option for our customers. The cost is not insignificant (we received an average now of 250 calls per day) but the customer value is there.

Hi all i agree about the so called lost cost numbers I’m in business and my solution works for companies i provide a click to call solution for business so the customer always gets a free call to the business but need to request the call from the business website.
http://www.buttontel.ie try it out for yourself.

I agree!

Ulster Bank Telephone Banking – 01 8047475….saves me ringing the 1850 number….i’m so cheap……but it’s free on BT so why not!

I have exactly the same rant. It has cost me nearly €13 this month extra on my phone bill for 4 1890 calls to online banking, revenue department etc. Even comreg’s only phone number is an 1890. So i rang o2 to ask why and they said ‘they are premium numbers’. Oh and ‘we are always working to reduce the prices’. So I have free landline calls but not these ones. And EVERY government department seems to have a 1850/1890 and no normal landline number.

I know from working in a business which has a 1850 number, that these numbers usually redirect to a proper landline number, so it wouldn’t cost anything extra for these businesses to give out both numbers and it would make it cheaper for people on mobiles. I am so sick of paying over the top for silly things in this country.

Originally these numbers were based on cost but now they are created as a tool to judge who is ringing and from where. The providers can offer reports on who is ringing you and from where therefore giving very good information about your customer.

Hi John,

Do you pay the providers for this information

I don’t think so. I believe you can request it as you’re paying for the rental of the line.

My system can do away with lo call freephone toll free and even ivr’s that the dial one for sales 2 for service and so on, take up for buttontel.ie has started to oick up speed with some big companies in ireland testing it.

Well I love them…. saved me 1000’s of euro. I’ve family abroad and I call telesavers that gives international calls at local rates. But of course mobile networks bar this number so it doesn’t eat their profits… wonder if that’s anti competitive??

Great rant David, I hope you feel better.

Seems like Michelle may be taking the emotional approach instead of quantifying exactly how much an 800 number would cost and then estimating the customer benefit accruing from using one….do the analysis before coming back with emotional generalisations.

For the most part you can get the local STD number from the businesses which is a cost saving if you call repeatedly but I would like to see them display the STD number along with the 1850/1890 numbers.

Good Blog, keep up the good work.

Eamonn

If you’re going to try to belittle my comments at least get my name right

Michele

Hi Dave, long time no see.

It don’t think it’s feasible to ask Businesses to use a Freefone number, as they may be open to abuse from customers ringing in for Support, generally the Sales number should be freefone, while support calls (depending on SLA) may be lo-call.

David
Great, point! Have had quite a few 1890/1850 calls recently. In England, for equivalent numbers, such as 0870/0808, there is a site called saynoto0870.com. It,presumably where it can, gives you the STD number of the 0870. Could this be done here?
Martin

The 18/00/50/90 series was good for what it intended to do. People were not financially penalised for using these prefixes…but along comes Mr. Cellphone. “Mr.C.” will take a slice of whatever is ‘available’. The beef is with mobile operators who charge extra, because they can. For instance, US mobile customers pay for all incoming calls whether roaming or not, and call charges are upped to the nearest minute. Wrong incoming number? Sorry, it’s still going to cost you even for 1 second..for a full minute. Why can a consumer savvy public accept this? Don’t know the answer. But I do know BUYER BEWARE, use your skill albeit at some inconvenience. If the mobile operators notice a drop in “premium” routings they will price accordingly. These numbers are cheap when used as designed..but bad value compliments of “Mr. C”.

Does anyone know if those new VOIP 076 XXX XXXX numbers are the same as the 18XX ones, meaning not included in the ‘Minutes’ packages?

Dear All;

Almost every department and company having an additional normal landline number for customers calling from outside Ireland apart from theire 1850/1890 number, just need to check their contact option for customers calling from ourside the coutry, and make calls to that number(00353…), both your 1850/1890 and international numbers are directed to same department

Regards
Biju

Hi DAve good point. I rang Dell Tech serice today. It took me 41 minutes on their 1850 number , speaking to someone in India or similar. I’m just wondering how much this will cost me, I’m with Eircom. What’s worse the problem wasn’t solved.

Hi all! I agree with everything everyone said! You could call me a yes man! I would agree with that too!
Enjoy the year.
Patrick

I’m surprised someone didn’t post this already – lots of business, government, and utilities local numbers listed.
Another reason to have local numbers is that they’re cheaper from Skype than 1800 and other non-geographic numbers.

http://www.saynoto1890.com

Hi All,

This does make very interesting reading and is some ways I agree with you, but in others I don’t. I work in the freephone industry & have issues with the “Scam” tarnish that is put on the industry as a whole for these numbers.

I fully agree that some of the Telecoms operators are (in my view) over charging for dialling these numbers. But this is an issue for that individual Telecom Company & must be taken up with them. After all you can buy a bacon sandwich from a man in a van for €2 or go to a posh hotel and buy it for €10… so would you class that as a “Scam”?

Also one point that you need to take in to account…. More and more companies are turning to network based services to help them meet regulatory requirements as they can piggy back these onto the 18** or 0818 numbers. By dialling the land line number, you are effectively avoiding the solution that has been put in place to help protect you!

For instance Call Recording. To put a recording unit in for a 30 seat call centre you are looking between €35,000 and €60,000 – which in today’s climate would mean 4, possibly 5 members of the call centre staff being made redundant to pay for it….
(oh & saynoto1890 have been told about this, but still fail to advise readers…)
Where as a network based solution would be charged on a pay as you go type arrangement with the company, thus making it a lot easier to swallow.

And finally just some food for thought…. BT in the UK has been pressured into including 0870 / 0845 into there free minutes….

Hi all

The issue here is not any fault of businesses. The 1850/1890/1800 numbers give a business a countrywide presence.
For example, if you are a building company that does work all over Ireland, using a local number (eg a Dublin 01 number) could make a potential customer in Galway think that you only serve the Dublin area.

The businesses may also have to pay the full whack of the cost on the above numbers. If you call a company on a mobile, they have to pay anywhere from 35c to 60c a minute. Imagine how that adds up over the cost of a year!!!

The culprits here are the mobile phone providers (02, vodafone, meteor, 3). They should include these numbers in the minutes.

To reiterate, it’s not the businesses to blame – they are losing money on these numbers. The phone companies are the ones to complain to.

Imagine this scenario from a business perspective.

You are a multinational company. You have a presence in Dublin that services the whole of Ireland. You publish a Dublin locall number. Head office then decides to move Tech Support calls to Belfast or even the UK.

Potential Issues:
1) Those living outside of Dublin may not want to call a company located in Dublin.

2) Tech Support activities are moved Belfast, do you publish a new Tech Support number for Belfast? What marketing costs will that involve in informing current users.

3) If moving sales related activities to the UK do you make customers dial an international number?

etc etc.

Would it not make more sence to publish a 1850/1890 number that can be re-directed within miutes to a new number in any location that will only cost the customer a shared fixed cost (1850 numbers) or shared timed cost (1890 numbers).

Does that not sound more like professionalism? But lets be honest, there are also cost implications that the company needs to consider so sharing the cost with the customer is not completely out of the question.

So it business or is the phone carriers?

This is very interesting and I suspect that the suggestion that phone companies are profitting hits the nail on the head. So is it simply the fault of the telephone call retailers (the telcos subscribers make their calls with) that they do not include 1890 calls in inclusive minutes or at the same rate as a local geographical call? I think not.

To help you understand what is happening, I will first explain what happens when a telephone call is made.

No longer is it a simple case of there being one provider that all telephone users subscribe to whereby calls start (or “originate”) and end (or “terminate”) on its network. I refer to within each nation; Eircom in Ireland and likewise BT in the UK.

In today’s telecommunications industry there are competing providers who must all interconnect with one another in order that subscribers of one provider may place calls to those of another provider.

Where a call originates and terminates different networks (i.e. with different network telephone providers), the terminating provider levies a “termination charge” on the originating provider. So if you call from an Eircom landline to Vodafone mobile, the latter imposes a charge on the former. The same is true for landline to landline and mobile to mobile.

I will explain what has happened in the UK with non-geographical numbers, as I suspect that there will be similarities in Irish telecommunications.

BT was the state owned provider, like Eircom was in Ireland. We have 0845 and 0870 numbers whose charges were aligned to local rate and national rate, respectively, with BT. Back in the day, the vast majority of consumers made their calls with BT, so 0845 was genuinely cheaper than a national geographical call.

The amount BT retains when it originates calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers is regulated to a relatively low level. The majority of the retail call charges are passed to the telephone provider of the respective number. Hence the termination charges are high (relative to geographical or landline calls) for these numbers.

When everyone made calls with BT, all was fine. But due to the far higher profit margins on the geographical calls, increased competion meant that their retail cost fell. This cannot happen (in the same way) with 0845 and 0870 numbers because there are very little profit margins because they are regulated (with BT) as such!

Mark makes a point about BT including 0845 and 0870 numbers in inclusive packages. This shouldn’t be misunderstood as the solution to the problem. The “wholesale” cost of termination charges to BT (and other providers) is still far higher than with geographical numbers. So consumers are paying for it regardless in higher line rental and other costs.

Any advanced features of 0845 and 0870 non-geographical numbers are therefore being funded by callers. This is irrespective of any peverse discounts by retailers, brought about by the aforementioned regulatory condition on BT.

In the UK we now have 03 prefixed numbers. These are non-geographical, just like 0845/0870 but must be included in packages and at no more than the price of geographical calls, a rule which applies to all landline and mobile providers. The terminating charges for these numbers is also the same as geographical calls.

So it costs telephone companies that retail calls the same for geographical numbers as 03 numbers.

I would also like to point out that the linkage of 0845 and 0870 to local and national rate, respectively, only applies on BT’s really old tariffs.

There are no such rules to govern charges on today’s so-called “discounted” BT tariffs. These are essentially BT’s response to the competition and were made compulsory in 2004 when it scrapped its principle pre-competition residential non-discounted tariff.

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