BT increases Call Charge Rate by 9%
BT just love sneaking out price increase details. This happened at the foot of an email from BT discussing other services.
The cost of an “out of plan” call rises from 5.4 pence per minute to 5.9 pence per minute (that’s 9% folks) with effect from the appropriate date of 1st April 2010. The call set-up charge for each call increases from 9.3 pence to 9.9 pence. The call set-up charge is particularly iniquitous; if you reach an answerphone you will be charged a minimum of 15.8 pence even if you hang up immediately.
Compare this with Skype which is 1.2 pence per minute and 2.9 pence call set-up, i.e. 4.1 pence minimum for a call (outside of plan).
Those are the domestic tariffs, I’ve yet to track down the business tariff’s, but I have little doubt that the increase will be 3x the rate of inflation there. If your business is paying the full BT tariff for calls you should be firing the person responsible for negotiating telephone costs. With a little bit of work it is usually a simple job to cut those costs by 30% from the BATEOTM, I can usually get 50% reduction with no loss of service quality.
Guru
BATEOTM - bill at the end of the month