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.

BT has raised it’s call setup fee from 6 to 7p which means that unless you have opted for a BT call plan or switched your billing to LCR, you will be paying 7p per connection before you start your call – this is quite poor considering large number of calls go to voicemail. UK VOIP providers lead the pack again with minimum call charges of 1.5p – 2p.

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.

Call plans such as: BTOneplan offer 5p capped calls(1 hour) to landlines & 20p capped calls(1 hour) to mobiles. To qualify for the plan customers need 2 other BT services on a 2 year contract. This however may not represent the best value for money to most of us – as a recent Telecost survey of 2 million calls across various industries suggests that the average call length to mobile is 110 seconds and an average call length to landline is 112 seconds. If this is accurate then BT’s offer is only suitable for companies that make longer than average length calls.

For maximum telecoms savings companies should insure that their phone system is GSM ready. By incorporating GSM gateways UK companies can achieve free office to staff mobile calls & rates of 1.47p per minute to other mobile networks. These deals are more suited to companies with higher call volumes as some development & negotiation is required.

To migrate your telecoms to VOIP you will need the following:

– SIP or IAX phone system

– good quality internet connection

– necessary upstream to cope with call requirement

– IP phones such as Cisco, Snom or Aastra

– Good advice & careful provisioning

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