0870 Numbers and Ofcom announcment.

Dear Customers and Colleagues,

Ofcom have recently announced their intention to withdraw revenue share from 0870 number, this will in turn cause your telecom carrier (us) to pass on a levy per minute. Carriers are shortly to negotiate the new interconnect rates for 0870 traffic effective from 1 st August. This will result in a small per minute levy being passed to the owners of 0870 numbers – it is anticipated to be between 1 and 2 pence per minute.

For those of you who rely on a revenue stream from 0870 then now is the time to look to replace these numbers with the new number of choice – 0844. Business Communications are offering a generous revenue share on these numbers (typically 5 pence per minute to call) and a host of call routing features.

Please call us to discuss your requirements and we will be delighted to help. We do of course offer a wide range of UK and international inbound numbers so you are certainly not limited to 0844 numbers – we will discuss all of the options.

I'm afraid that 0845 also appears to be in Ofcom's sight so we recommend that you start to make plans for a migration from 0845; again we will be delighted to help.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Reconnection Fees

Due to a high number of customers failing to keep their worldpay accounts up to date, or failing to ensure there are sufficient funds in their account for their worldpay payments to go through successfully on the 26th of each month, we are announcing a change in company policy. Any customer with a failed payment will automatically have their number disconnected following two warning emails.  In order to have your number reconnected, customers will need to bring their account up to date first and/or ensure the funds are in their account in order for us to retry the payment successfully.  Customers will also now incur a £30 reconnection fee per number iif the number had been disconnected. Help us to help you and keep our costs down by making sure your Worldpay agreement is upto date.

We wish to thank those customers who pay on a regular basis with no issues.

Ne Ofcom ruling regarding 0870 numbers

Two years ago, Ofcom decided that 0870 numbers would need to be charged as local calls (geographic rate). It has taken sometime to get the ground cleared for this to happen. As yet, Ofcom have not set a date and not set charges, although our Ofcom contact states they are expecting this to come into force during 2009.

This will mean that all calls received on an 0870 number will incurr charges even if it is pointed to a landline.

To avoid charges you can shift across to an 0844, 0845 or 0871  number, we can provide this free of charge. However, we appreceate there maybe business cards and other forms of advertising that may need to be changed. It is a business decision that you need to make. Kindly let our office know your decision via email and we will give you a call to discuss.  louise@businesscommunications.co.uk

New Services

We now offer UK NGN numbers that can point to any telephone number on the planet, if you have a specific requirement please drop us a line. Thanks