The UK telecoms giant BT seems to have adopted the selling of capped calls as part of its call plans - are ‘capped calls’ really offering good value to the customer as call plans usually carry long tie-ins & other obligations?
Call rates are unusually tricky to find on websites, BT’s own website proved awkward to say the least with over 50 long lists to look through I wouldn’t be surprised if many new customers give up the search - or maybe thats the intention? Calling telecoms companies proved a bit more fruitfull athough overwhelming with the variety of products that seemed to offer good rates on one hand and take away with long contract obligations with the other.
Upon successfully uncovering the call rates for BT & most major UK telecoms operators I needed to establish the UK’s average call length.. Telecost performed this task a few years ago by analysing 2 million call records (2278614 to be precise) of 100 different companies in different parts of the UK. There was a wide range of company types in the study including high volume users such as: recruitment agencies, debt collection and media companies. It is of course difficult to know how representative the sample is however I don’t expect BT will dish this out willingly. The results are shown below:
Average length of mobile call (07 numbers) - 110 seconds.
Average length of landline call (01 numbers) - 112 seconds.
Average length of landline call (02 numbers) - 121 seconds.
I am therefore going to assume that the average call length is 2 minutes hence:
A 2 minute call on BT Standard Rate to mobile is 45p and to landline is 15p inc BT’s call setup fee.
A 2 minute mobile call using BT’s ‘Business Plan’ is 25p (capped) and a 2 minute landline call is 8p on a 1 year contract.
A 2 minute call on BT’s ‘Oneplan’ to mobile is 20p(capped) and to landline is 5p(capped) on a 2 year contract with extra services required.
A 2 minute call through Westlake to mobile would cost 18p and to landline would cost 2.5p on a one year contract.
A 2 minute call through Midland Telecom to mobile would cost 16p and to landline would cost 1.8p on a 1 year contract with a minimum spend requirement.
A 2 minute call through Gradwell Business VOIP to mobile would cost 20p and a 2 minute call to landline would be free (on all inclusive tarif else the call would cost 2.5p) on a 3 month contract.
The conclusion therefore is:- if your business makes average length calls then you are probably better off with LCR or VOIP, however if your business calls are long then BT offers good value, however…
The best possible way to route business calls is to use a phone system such as Asterisk that is able to route calls via the most efficient routes. For example customers may route all 01 numbers through VOIP to take advantage of the all inclusive tarif and unlimited outbound trunks, use GSM gateways for free calls to staff mobiles (a big chunk of a typicall business phone bill) & mobile call rates as low as 4.5p. It is also not a bad idea to have a few BT lines on ‘Oneplan’ - for long length calls (users can have buttons on their phones that say long calls or can be made to press a button before dialling out)
This is guide to help UK companies make a more informed decision about their coms - the information above was obtained on Sept 08 hence e&oe.
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