As the recession strikes down even more corporate victims & consumer spending hits an all time low, outlook looks bleak for British businesses, except that is for British Telecom the UK largest communications company who has increased its call setup fees, line rentals & call charges.
Line rentals for BT PSTN, ISDN2 & ISDN30 services vary from 12GBP to 15GBP on typical 12 month agreements, up on same time last year. UK VOIP service privider Gradwell offers a good alternative to companies who are ready for SIP or IAX services with monthly line rental of GBP1.50 per trunk and unlimited outbound channels.
The connection fee has not escaped the recent BT price hikes with some connection charges up 25% to 299GBP(ISDN2) on last year. BT's strategy is to offer free or reduced connection fees for customers willing to enter into long term agreements. Many UK VOIP providers currently offer free connection to win business.
Many telephone providers & LCR operators charge a minimum call fee, this varies from as little as 1.5p to 1 minute minimum charge. As from Sept 2008 BT is charging 7p to connect for customers who have not to entered into any call plan agreement - an increase of 14% to last year
UK office to mobile rates vary from 8p per minute to BT's 19p standard rate. Minute rates to national numbers vary from 0.8p to BT's 4p. ITSPs appear to be the most competitive again with rates of 9-11p to mobiles & 1.25-1.5p to landlines.
'Oneplan' by BT offers 5p capped calls to landlines & 20p capped calls to mobiles for 1 hour. To qualify for this plan customers require 2 other BT services on a 2 year contract. The plan is good value to businesses that make higher than average length calls - however a recent survey of 2 million calls carried out by Telecost suggests that the average call length is less than 112.seconds - therefore for most companies lower per minute rates would make more economic sense.
To make serious savings on telecoms companies should insure that their new phone systems are GSM ready. By integrating GSM gateways(perfectly legal regardless of the scaremongering) UK companies can achieve free office to staff mobile calls and 1.47p - 3p minute rates to any mobile network.
To migrate your telecoms to VOIP you will need the following:
- phone system that supports SIP or IAX
- good quality internet connection
- sufficient bandwidth to cary all required calls
- IP telephones
- Good advice & careful provisioning
About the Author:
The author is a phone systems consultant and has been involved in VOIP telecoms since 2003. Please check out the latest UK Call Rate Comparisons.
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