Telephone call costs

I am often asked to give examples of the relative cost of telephone calls to Geographic Rate and Business Rate numbers.

The following table covers the cost of weekday daytime calls of exactly 5 minutes, reflecting prices published as at 27 February 2011.

All landline and mobile providers offer inclusive calls to Geographic Rate numbers as part of the standard tariff for those who normally use their phones for such calls at the relevant time. Those who do not normally make (daytime) calls to Geographic Rate numbers would pay (outside contract) penalty charges. These penalty (or infrequent use) charges, are NOT reflected here for landline and contract mobile services.

In some cases, there are various rates for calls to 0844 and 0871 numbers. Those selected - g6, g7 and g10 - are those most commonly used, e.g. by GPs, airlines and those who seek to pretend that Business Rate calls are not more expensive, respectively.

Service		5 minute weekday daytime call cost
		Geographic Rate	Business Rate
		01/02/03	0845	0844 (g10)	0844 (g6)	0871 (g7)
Landline
	BT	inclusive	inclusive	£ 0.27	£ 0.38	£ 0.63
	Virgin	inclusive	£ 0.63	£ 0.48	£ 0.65	£ 0.74
	Talk Talk	inclusive	inclusive	£ 0.37	£ 0.37	£ 0.63
	Sky Talk	inclusive	£ 0.41	£ 0.26	£ 0.36	£ 0.62
Contract
	Vodafone	inclusive	£ 1.05	£ 1.05	£ 1.05	£ 1.80
	Orange	inclusive	£ 1.02	£ 0.62	£ 0.62	£ 1.79
	O2	inclusive	£ 1.02	£ 1.02	£ 1.02	£ 1.79
	T-Mobile	inclusive	£ 2.05	£ 2.05	£ 2.05	£ 2.05
	Three	inclusive	£ 1.75	£ 1.75	£ 1.75	£ 1.75
PAYG
	Vodafone	£ 1.05	£ 1.25	£ 1.25	£ 1.25	£ 1.25
	Orange	£ 1.00	£ 2.00	£ 2.00	£ 2.00	£ 2.00
	O2	£ 0.75	£ 1.25	£ 1.25	£ 1.25	£ 1.75
	T-Mobile	£ 1.50	£ 2.00	£ 2.00	£ 2.00	£ 2.00
	Three	£ 1.30	£ 1.75	£ 1.75	£ 1.75	£ 1.75
Public Payphone		£ 0.60	£ 1.40	£ 1.40	£ 1.40	£ 5.40

I would be most grateful if anyone who sees any error in this information would alert me by email using this link.

Posting updated on Sunday, February 27, 2011