BT charges to rise

In a move to encourage customers to sign up for inclusive packages, BT has announced that it will increase ordinary call charges by 10% and increase line rental by 50p per month with effect from the beginning of October. These increases come on top of an announcement last month of an increase in call charges from pay phones of 50% (from 40p to 60p).

Customers who want to avoid the increase can do so provided they sign up and pay for a year’s line rental in advance or take one of BTs inclusive call or bundled packages.

Customers also have to accept e-mail only billing as part of the deal.

Consumer groups are up in arms about the increases, pointing out that the insistence on e-mail billing will disproportionately affect the elderly and those in rural areas with poor broadband connections, whilst only the better off will be able to afford to pay one year’s line rental in advance. The one exception is those who qualify for BTs special low income tariff who will be unaffected by the increase.

As far as businesses are concerned, we can see only one logical outcome from this price increase. The rate that businesses, and private customers, will move away from traditional telephone facilities and towards internet based VoIP calls will accelerate. The new BT charges meant that the standard cost of connecting a call in the UK will rise to 10.9p whilst the daytime rate will rise to 6.4p per minute. Compare this with Callagenix’s VoIP to standard UK landline rate of 2p per minute with VoIP to VoIP being free and you can immediately see the attractions of a VoIP package.

Of course, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) can bring other advantages as well as cheap calls. Run your phone package via the Internet and all of a sudden a whole new world of conference calling, virtual switchboards, call recording and storage and improved disaster recovery processes opens up before you. With the added benefit of your phone records being stored by Callagenix, you don’t need to worry about increasing the size of your own computer system and you know that your records are securely backed up in two sites and available whenever you need them.

So if the proposed BT increase does drive more customers away from traditional phone lines and towards VoIP, we can only cheer. With added security, greater flexibility and cheaper calls what business wouldn’t look at VoIP as part of its benchmark for the future.