Re: Pre-Dial (et. al.) geo, Wherefore art thou Pre-Dial (et. al.) geo...


"News Reader" <no@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Btvii.5130$fi4.2587@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Oh..

Pre-Dial (et. al.) geo,
Wherefore art thou,
Pre-Dial (et. al.) geo.



lol.


Are their no current pre-dial geo dial-through numbers?
Are their no other operators offering this geo dial-through service?


Best wishes,



News Reader





lol


I am only being a bit silly.

I think you would find it is actually viable economically, but by and large,
as soon as terminators (and hence termination fee payers - i.e. other
telcos) discover that such a service is not a standard Mr & Mrs. Smith, but
a dial through service, they immediately dispute revenues and get very
uppity. Thus, even if the termination revenues, fractions of a penny a
minute, are (as I understand in reality is actually fact and the case)
sufficient to cover outbound termination to a large number of international
destinations (e.g. USA, Western Europe landlines, etc.), their entire
operation is soon choked off by the other telco networks who are paying the
termination fee to the geographic number operator (and quickly stop paying
and start refusing to pay the termination fee!).

It is interesting as to who is actually in the right or wrong here (with
respect to operation of services and payment of termination fees or refusal
to do so - rather than the economics of the whole operation). I don't know
that their is any legislation or rule set in termination fee arrangements
that precludes provision of particular services on end numbers. It would be
interesting to see, know or have this tested in court, etc. It may be
clearly "wrong" or "illegal" or it may be muscle flexing by the big boys
trying to cut out those undercutting them.

As I say on the economics side - I think anyone can pan handle their carpet
bagging to the point of realising that just because BT or Virgin Media
charge X tens of pence per minute doesn't mean that is anywhere near the
actual costs involved. Clearly, wholesale prices are fractions of that. If
someone can make money providing a call through on an 0844 number that costs
0.5p/minute to call, when the telco operating that number will take their
cut first, delivering perhaps 0.2 or 0.3 or less p/minute to the
international call through operator, the cost of the international leg has
to be of the order of say 0.1 p/min - which sounds about right to me!

Check wholesale rates... compare to geo incoming termination rates, and my
understanding is their can be sufficient margin their... it is just not
liked by those who suddenly loose their £'s/minute for the same service!

Oh well - lol.

All good and terrible rip off / con, etc. ;) - lol .

Good old OFCOM et. al., will surely not wade in and waddle along late
enough - lol ;).


Best wishes,



News Reader


P.s. Another very fair and valid point in my opinion. It seems that most,
most nearly all, telecom firms currently have almost know clue what they are
doing (or 90+% of their staff anyhow!). You call them and ask them how much
XYZ call will be (customer service staff providing prices of their calling
services is pretty much one of their number one jobs! - or it is supposed to
be and used to be); and these days Jane or John will tell you that they
don't set the price - the person whose number it is does! Errr.... yeah...
that's right... I run a business... I buy 20 packs of paper and the person I
buy it from tells me what price I must set... I don't and can't run a
competitive business and choose my own price...; better yet I cannot and do
not know what price it is either and can't tell you....?

Errr... this is complete *%&£($. As I am sure we all know.

Every call is assigned a tariff bracket; which is mated to that tariff
look-up charge on each telecom firms pricing database and billing system;
which then determines the total cost of the call - rate * duration. Thus
every premium rate number, special code non-geo number, personal number,
etc. has a specific and discrete rate charged for it and by the telecom firm
who you are taking calling services from. THEY choose the price... they
could make it free and loose a lot of money, they could use a similar or the
same tariff system as BT, or they could charge the earth and moon for it.
What they cannot do is lie and say they do know, put their hands up in the
air, and pretend that when they put their head in the sand everything is
great. Derrrr... if their billing system knows what to charge... they know
what to charge!!!!.... Err... ask the right guy, look in the right document,
pull your finger out, use your brain... and get that information even if the
customer services director has deliberately withheld from you (the staff) to
obfuscate (despite that being clearly illegal - not to mention culpable
negligence of wilful mis-training or under training, etc.). Go down to the
billing computer if you need to, and manual enquire of it what the rate
is.... derrr... I am sure as soon as you get near it, the guy who actually
knows something will happily jump straight in to help you and do the price
lookup for you rather than let you fiddle with his billing computer! lol...

What an absolute, dire strait, of complete piss take, incompetence and
general crapitude! - lol... We don't know what XYZ premium rate number will
cost (even though we are required by law and our telecom operators license
from OFCOM to maintain a published price list) and that from the most
obvious, patent, and simple logic, understanding, knowledge and insight -
you are a telco company... you run a business.. you choose your own
prices... derr... you chose what price will get you customers, what will
make you profit, etc... lol. No phone system in the world would or could
work if any customer could every suddenly be charged £100/second for calling
a number and not know or be able to find out in advance. The whole reason
you have licenses and a regulator is so that confidence in the whole system
can be established by having rules, etc.

It is just incredible that massive, supposedly class leading organisations,
that 10, 20 or 30 years ago where ever more capable, knowledgeable, able and
efficient at providing price information and understanding that they of
course can do this and that that is their job and that of course they know
their own prices because they set their own prices and that is how the whole
system works! Incredible.

I have had operators and customer service staff at BT completely bemused by
the above notions.... that they should be able to provide a simple price for
a given number... the very idea that they should be able to do this seems to
loose them.... How these people can work in a business whose very essence is
this entire point is beyond me; even if their brain was left behind a long
time ago; and the training their employer provides is completely lacking,
the fundamental principle and idea of what a "telephone company" is surely
could not be missed... but it appears to be being missed...? How any telecom
operator can leave hundreds of their front line staff... and their
supervisors, and those supervisors supervisors, in this condition or state
is beyond me! Their bread and butter is providing phone calls, charging for
those phone calls, and letting customers know what they will get and what
they will be charged for it -!!! errr... duuhhhh!

As I say I have had staff at various of the large telco operators completely
lost by this. BT, Vodafone, etc. These companies are supposed to be
exemplars...? And as above, supervisors and their managers have been
completely lost, and unable to provide or direct to their published price
list; provide accurate explanation of the cost of a given call; or even
demonstrate understanding of how call charging works (whether generally or
their own). Incredible! Derrr.. requirement of OFCOM telecom operators
license = published price list... we know that for BT this is on serviceview
( www.serviceview.bt.com ) - most of their staff less than seem not to...
they don't even seem to grasp how fundamental telephone service provision
and pricing works; let alone their regulatory requirements; or the obvious
fact that their billing system obviously knows that right amount to charge.

Anyhow - this is clearly one for somebody! lol... senior management, OFCOM,
etc.

Our best companies... bowled over by simple price enquiries that consumers
seem better able and capable of understanding than they do themselves.
Vodafone, BT - shining examples - supposedly - that once you even start to
peak beneath the wrapping are so much more than just tarnished it is
untrue... these are our supposed shining examples... lol / god! - One of
these operators at least can't even comply with their own most basic
fundamental regulatory license requirement - a published price list.

The operator, at BT, at any rate - used to be a bastion of quality,
excellence, service, etc. Now they seem to be struggling to suck eggs and
wanting to pass any call off to somebody else who often it seems, amazingly
... knows less.

Anyhow...


*** Moving On... Next Point ***

Special number provisions.

I wanted to make one other point about treatment of "certain" numbers and
number ranges.

Their seems to be increasing keenness to class certain numbers, almost
arbitrarily as special services and charge separate discrete and distinct
rates for them.

Thus various operators seem to be largely at random selecting particular
numbers - singling them out as special or different in some way - and
deciding to charge a completely different rate for them and often a penal
rate and keeping this information well hidden.

Examples:

- "internet access numbers" - many operators seem to have decided that
if you dial an internet access number that is on a particular geographic
number, particular 0845 or 0844 number, they will load it differently and
more than other users of those numbers. I.e. a normal 020 7 or 8 essentially
"geographic" number, that provides internet access, can and is by some
operators treated as "non geographic" and then charged at a premium rate.
Equally, certain 0845 or 0844 numbers are plucked out of their allocated
number and charging ranges and treated to extra levies...? If a number is
used for a data service - perhaps privately dialling from one friend to
another to play some head to head games by modem, this is surely or
understood to be fine. At what point does this data use get decided to be a
particular kind of data use that demands extreme treatment and extra penal
charging? Some operators single out certain numbers, others, BT for example,
state that they may decide to retrospectively identify or record certain
numbers as unacceptable data use? What data use is ok? Clear and transparent
pricing... hmm.

- personal numbers - a number of operators seem to be slipping
definitions of personal numbers in amongst mobile number ranges. Hence, we
now have large blocks of unclear numbers. Instead of being able to trust
that all 077 prefix numbers are mobiles - some operators now determine that
randomly almost it seems, for example, 07748 will in fact be called a
personal number range and charged a separate "premium" rate.


In essence, what should be and is designed to be clear number ranges with
clear tariff codes, is now getting shot to pieces, where particular (large)
telcos decide to randomly shot certain subsets of numbers into special extra
loaded prices territory.

This makes a mess and farce of the whole system - which is supposed to be
about clarity for the consumer.

As I say, and furthermore, this makes a joke of the whole thing. Conusmers
can now face lists of 20 pages of "random" numbers that have been given
special treatment and so aren't included as normal 01 or 02 numbers but
whilst beginning with such codes are loaded with extra charges...? This
seems scantly legal. All other documentation blithely says geographic = 01
or 02 (but read further on and on other documents and you might be lucky
enough to discover before you dial it that actually Peters 01234123123
number is in fact 50 pence per minute and not free or 1p/minute like all the
others). How are consumers supposed to live, work and deal with this. Oh....
I will just manually scan a price list addendum every time before I call ...
oh and keep checking to see if they have changed my reference document price
list; or introduced a new "pricing document" addendum, etc.

Criminal... or so it seems... certainly a very poor effort that defeats and
undermines the purpose of the whole thing.

As I say, this is a very poor effort, and makes a mockery of the whole
purpose and performance of any regulator, industry advisory or steering
group,etc. - particularly as a large chunk of the offenders are the big
operators themselves - who are the very ones we are supposed to lord up to
our international neighbours and friends as shining examples?

Oh well.... it is all good. ... and OFCOM, etc. or they will get their by
themselves in the end... or regulation, oversight, fail safe, auto-check and
auto-correct, auto-penalise, etc. systems will :) .


Bye for now. Apologies for everything I forget to say as well.


Best wishes,




News Reader



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