BT has today announced that it will offer its 14 million customers free calls to the controversial 0870 and 0845 numbers.
The numbers, often used by various businesses, are charged at national rate for 0870 and local rate for 0845. Having thus far remained exempt from any calling packages, BT has today moved to include calls to such numbers as part of its "Evening and Weekend" or "Anytime" packages.
BT Evening and Weekend, the standard plan applicable to all BT customers, now includes free calls to 0870 and 0845 numbers after 6pm on weekdays and throughout the weekend. Customers utilising BT's Anytime package - at a cost of £4.85 per month - will get free calls to these numbers at all times.
In recent weeks, the Government has announced plans to review doctor's surgeries using such numbers following high levels of consumer complaints.
BT currently remains the only provider to offer calls to 0870 and 0845 numbers as part of its calling plans, but we'd venture to guess - or hope - that rival providers such as Virgin Media will soon follow suit.
John Petter, managing director of BT’s Consumer business, said:
We know that the public is frustrated by having to pay higher charges for these numbers, even though BT’s rates were cheaper than our rivals, so we worked out a way to go further and include calls to 0870 and 0845 numbers in our call packages.
These numbers are widely used by banks, utilities and even NHS Direct, and our customers spend 30 minutes a month on average calling these numbers. We hope we have taken a sting out of the price of these calls, but also removed one of those irritations that customers believed was an unfair anomaly.
Further details are available at BT.com
