Call free from July

One of the biggest bugbears about mobile phone contracts is the excessive charges that have been levied on calls to numbers that are free when called from landlines. Freephone numbers have never been free when called from mobile devices, and to add insult to injury often have to re-dialled since the mobile device won’t recognise the number until the initial zero has been removed.

All of this changes from the 1st July this year when these call charges disappear for mobile calls to 0800 numbers. At the same time the cost structure of mobile calls to other ‘premium’ rate numbers will change as well, and this should have the effect or reducing charges for most mobile users. Calls to 0845 type numbers have long been criticised for the confusion they cause, particularly since they are used by what many see as ‘essential’ services such as banks and insurers and travel companies.

There is likely to be a huge disparity between the charges that different operators will apply to these calls, perhaps ranging from the 44p per minute that EE intends charging to a much lower 20p per minute from Talk Talk.

This makes it even more important than ever for anyone looking to renew a mobile phone contract to make sure that they understand exactly what charges they are likely to incur for all of the different types of calls that can be made these days, and not just to be swayed by a very cheap headline rental rate.

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