Calling time on expensive phone bills

A mere six months ago we wrote about the April price rise from BT and how it had shocked consumers, coming as soon as it had after a rise the previous October. Now BT are doing it again; increasing their call charges by 5% to 7.95p per minute in December alongside a further rise in line rentals.

This latest increase from BT on top of rises earlier this year and in 2010 means that call charges have increased by 47% since April 2010 when the price was a mere 5.4p per minute. Talk Talk have already followed suit with an announcement of an increase in line rental charges from October.

In fairness to BT, they do say that many of their customers have actually reduced telephone costs within the past year but only by signing up to packages, some of which include bundled telephone and broadband options. With this latest rise, analysts expect more customers will look around for bundled or alternative deals or even join the exodus away from landline telephones in favour of mobiles.

Although most businesses wouldn’t be able to work solely with mobile phones, there are still options available as alternatives to the traditional landline. One of these alternatives is VoIP, otherwise known as internet telephony. VoIP is a way of making telephone calls over the internet, either directly to another VoIP phone or to a landline. VoIP to VoIP calls can often be free whilst VoIP to landline costs are inexpensive when compared with standard BT and other rates. For example, the Callagenix charge for VoIP to UK landline works out at just 2p. per minute and calling the USA is only 3.8p per minute.

Of course, internet telephony is not just about cheaper calls. Once the decision to switch has been made there are a host of additional phone services available which will improve the service which a business is able to offer its clients whilst at the same time keeping costs down. Call recording and storage can help with regulatory requirements and training with digital storage being easy to access. Virtual switchboards can recognise callers, provide push button options, record messages or divert calls to anywhere in the world; all for a fraction of the cost of a PBX exchange.

With ever increasing and clever technology there will come a point when the traditional telephone line passes into history. Whether this current rise in telephone costs will accelerate the end by driving people into other forms of communication is something which future analysts will review with interest.