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?
Trying to gather call rate information for this task was rather awkward to say the least - BT’s website and search facility seemed to make this task ‘difficult’ to say the least. In my experience the best way to do this is call.
Armed with call rates call rates for BT & alternative telecoms prividers, I had to to establish the average call length. Luckily Telecost performed this task in 2002 by looking at call records of 100 companies in different UK locations and mixed industry sectors. In total some 2 million records were analysed. Of course some time has gone by and without a bigger study it is difficult to be certain - so if anything this is a good guide:
Average length of call to mobile (07 numbers) - 110 seconds.
Average length of call to landline (01 numbers) - 112 seconds.
Average length of national call (02 numbers) - 121 seconds.
If the average call length is 2 minutes then the following stands to reason:
A 2 Minute call through BT Standard Rate to mobile would cost 45p and to landline would cost 15p (inc 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 using Midland LCR to mobile is 16p and 1.8p to landline on a 1 year contract with minimum spend requirement.
A 2 minute call using Gradwell VOIP to mobile would cost 20p and a 2 minute call to landline would be free(subject to acceptable usage otherwise would cost 2.5p) on a 3 month contract.
The conclusion, based on the information above being correct therefore is:- if you own an ‘average’ business then you are better off with LCR or VOIP. If your bunsiness makes longer than average phonecalls then you are better off staying with BT, although…
The most efficient way to handle business calls is to use a telephone system such as Asterisk which is able to route calls via the most efficient methods: ie. route all national calls through VOIP hence take advantage of free calls and unlimited outbound trunks. Route mobile calls through GSM gateways to benefit from free calls to staff mobiles & mobile call rates of 4.5p. It is also not a bad idea to have a few BT lines on Oneplan to route long calls. This method also allows gives the user the benefit of mutiple failovers.
This article is merely a guide to help UK businesses make up their own minds - the call rates were obtained in Sept 08 hence may or may not be accurate at the time of reading.
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