0845 number

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An 0845 number is a non-geographic telephone number in the United Kingdom.

The 08 number series (including 0845) is called Business Rate Services by Ofcom^[1]. This is a series of "revenue-sharing" numbers, meaning the recipient of the call can receive part of the charge paid by the caller. Other names used for 0845 numbers include "Special Services: Lower Rate", "local call" and "Lo-call".

1 Usage
2 Advantages
3 Call charges
4 Routing
5 Opposition
6 History
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Usage

0845 numbers are typically used by the service departments of businesses and public sector organisations.

For example, suppose a large retail chain has stores throughout the country. It advertises a single phone number (0845). Customers across the country call this one number, but the call could be answered at their local store, according to the origin of the call.

Another use of 0845 is for call-financed services. The owner of the 0845 number in some cases receives income from calls received, with which they can partly or wholly finance their service, or even make a profit. Some dial-up ISPs receive their income in this way, with no need for separate billing of customers.

Charges paid by the caller for 0845 calls are set by each phone company individually. Charges can vary greatly, especially when the call originates from a UK mobile or a non-UK number.

Many UK organisations which previously could be reached on a geographical number now only publish an 0845 number.

[edit] Advantages

An organisation may prefer an 0845 number over a geographical numbers for several reasons.

Routing. The 0845 operator provides tools for managing large volumes of incoming calls. Calls can be routed to call centres in different parts of the country depending on a number of factors such as the origin of the call, the available capacity or the time of day. The caller is less likely to encounter a busy signal and have to re-dial.
Publications. 0845 enables the organisation to publish a convenient, single number (e.g. on stationery, vehicles, advertisements) rather than, say, a list for different cities, or different numbers for in hours and out of hours. Materials showing the number can be reused across the country. Changes to the 0845 number are rarer than changes in a range of geographical numbers.
Revenue. The charge paid by the caller finances the forwarding of the call to the appropriate destination. Additionally, if sufficient volume is attained, the organisation receives a share of the call charge.

[edit] Call charges

[edit] From UK landlines

The cost of calling an 0845 number is usually higher than calling a geographic 01 or 02 number. 0845 is not included in call plans offering "free national calls".

Prices include VAT.

Operator	Day per min	Eve per min	W/E per min	Date checked
BT^[2]	2p	0.5p	n/a	30 May 2008
SkypeOut^[3]	8.4p	8.4p	8.4p	30 May 2008
Virgin Media^[4]	6p	6p	n/a	30 May 2008
Vonage^[5]	5p	3p	2p	30 May 2008

[edit] From UK mobiles

The charges shown generally apply to calls from pre-paid mobile plans ("pay-as-you-go") with VAT included.
The charges may be lower on post-pay ("pay monthly") plans, but can be more expensive on other mobile providers.
The monthly minutes (sometimes called free minutes) included in price plans generally do not apply to 0845 numbers, which are charged separately.

Operator	Cost/min	Date checked
BT	20p^[6]	30 December 2007
dot	20p^[7]	30 December 2007
3	15p^[8]	30 December 2007
O₂	25p^[9]	30 December 2007
Orange	25p^[10]	30 December 2007
TalkTalk	35p^[11]	30 December 2007
Tesco	20p^[12]	30 December 2007
T-Mobile	"Call 150"^[13]	30 December 2007
Virgin	10p^[14]	30 December 2007
Vodafone	30p/10p^[15]	30 December 2007

[edit] From abroad

When calling from outside the UK (i.e. +44 845) many operators charge the call as a "Premium Rate Service" or "Mobile call" (sic). Examples: AT&T^[16], CommuniTel^[17], SkypeOut^[18]. The result in most cases is that the cost of calling +44 845 from outside the UK is significantly more than the cost of calling a UK geographical number (e.g. +44 20 for London) plus the cost of an 0845 call within the UK. The increased charge is levied by the UK partner onto the non-UK operator and passed directly to the caller.

With many pre-paid phonecards calls to +44 845 are blocked.^[19] Either the UK partner does not connect the inbound call or the phonecard provider does not accept the charge levied by the UK operator.

[edit] Routing

Calls to an 0845 number are connected to a Number Translation Service (NTS), which is an intermediate operator between the operator used by the caller and the operator used by the recipient of the call.

In the simplest case, the NTS translates the 0845 number into a regular geographic number and routes it via the telephone exchange in the normal way. In many cases, however, routing features are used, including routing by time of day, location of caller, day of week, capacity, etc. These features are sometimes referred to as static routing features - once in place they seldom need to be changed. If changes are required, a customer usually has several options to make changes. Some providers provide a website where changes can be made, or a special number can be called to make the changes.

[edit] Opposition

There is increasing consumer opposition to the use of 0845 (0844, 0870, 0871) numbers, due to the associated and unclear charges, and the fact that the owner of the number is often receiving income from the call.^[20]

A particular cause of opposition is the case where a call is answered by an automated system and put into a queue for several minutes - during which the caller pays the per-minute rates shown above.

Calls from outside the UK might not be connected at all or are often charged at extremely high rates. Some overseas operators give out no or incorrect price information to their customers.

As well as demanding abolition of these numbers, consumers are also seeking ways of reducing or circumventing the charges, for example by calling the equivalent geographical or 0800 number, or another department within the organisation and asking to be transferred.^[21]

The ability of government departments to generate income by setting up revenue-sharing numbers like 0845 has been called a stealth tax. During debates in the House of Commons, a number of Members of Parliament have criticised the use of 0845 numbers to provide access to government services, such as at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)^[22]. The criticism is in the general case that taxpayers are already financing government services via taxation, and in the specific case of DWP that callers might be for example benefit claimaints with limited financial means. The DWP is in the process of migrating from 0845 numbers to 0800 or 03 numbers.^[23]

[edit] History

0845 numbers were formerly known as 0345 numbers, which were operated by BT and were described as "Lo-call" numbers (play on the word "local").

0845 numbers were until 2004 charged at the same rate as local calls (numbers with the same area code). The rates for "local" and "national" were later replaced by a single rate for calls to UK geographical numbers, which are now generally cheaper than calls to 0845 numbers.

Mercury Communications Ltd, now Cable and Wireless, operated a similar scheme using the 0645 code. When the 0345 and 0645 codes were abolished, 0345 numbers were prefixed with 7 to become 0845 7xx xxxx and 0645 numbers were prefixed with 9 to become 0845 9xx xxxx. There are also other prefixes for different 0845 number providers.