Business Voip & LCRs Challenge BT’s Price Hikes

Considering that UK is in recession, banks are collapsing, consumers reduce their spending and fuel prices reach record highs, BT the UK telecoms giant has significantly increased its connection charges, monthly line rentals & call setup fees.

Monthly line rentals for BT PSTN, ISDN2 & ISDN30 services vary from £12GBP to £15GBP on a minimum 12 month agreement, up on same time last year. UK VOIP ITSP Gradwell offers a good alternative to companies who are ready for SIP or IAX services with monthly line rental of £1.50 per trunk and unlimited outbound channels on a 3 month contract.

A telecoms industry favourite money spinner is the connection fee which has not escaped the recent price hikes with some BT connection charges up 25% to £299GBP(ISDN2) on last year. BT’s usual strategy is to offer free or reduced connection fees for customers willing to enter into long term agreements or call plans. UK VOIP telecoms providers answered back with free connection to all services and contract lengths of 1 to 3 months.

As of September 08 BT has increased it’s call setup fee to 7p which means that unless you have opted for a call plan or switched to LCR, you will be paying 7p for connection before you start your call. Many telecoms companies charge a minimum of one minute whilst UK VOIP providers lead the pack with minimum call charges of 1.5p - 2p & per second billing.

UK mobile rates vary from 8p per minute through LCRs on long term contract and large minimum spend to BT’s 19p standard rate. Minute rates to national numbers vary from 0.8p to BT’s 4p. UK ITSPs appear to be the most competitive again with minute rates of 9-11p to mobiles & 1.25-1.5p to landlines, without any long term or spend commitment.

Call plans such as BT ‘Oneplan’ offer 5p capped calls to landlines & 20p capped calls to mobiles. To qualify for this plan you will need 2 other BT services on a 2 year contract. A survey of 2 million calls carried out by Telecost suggests that the average call length to mobile is 110 seconds and an average call to landline is 112 seconds. This service is therefore more suitable to companies that make longer than average length calls.

For maximum telecoms savings companies should insure that their phone system is GSM ready. By incorporating GSM gateways UK companies can achieve free office to staff mobile calls & rates of 1.47p per minute to other mobile networks. These deals are more suited to companies with higher call volumes as some development & negotiation is required.

Those companies who are thinking of migrating telecoms to VOIP will need the following:

- phone system that supports SIP or IAX

- access to low contended ADSL or SDSL services

- adequate bandwidth to carry the required number of simultaneous calls.

- Any SIP phones such as Cisco, Snom or Aastra

- consult a telecoms professional with a good references in VOIP telecoms

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