Ofcom, the British communications industry regulator, has announced that finally mobile networks will have to cease charging for calls to freephone 0800 numbers. Or rather, from 2015 they will. In addition, changes will be made to charges for calling numbers used by companies and organisations that start with 08, 09 and 118.
Charges will be capped to all numbers starting with 09, often used by premium rate services, and in addition to 0800 going free, numbers starting 0808 and 116 will lose their mobile charges under the new regulations.
The fact that such charges have been allowed to go on for so long is still disappointing, but needless to say it's a change for the better. 26 June 2015 is the big day, which means sadly we're still saddled with paying for another 18 months. Better late than never.
Source: Pocket-Lint
Reader comments
Ofcom to make all 0800 calls free from mobiles in 2015
It's about time they did something about that. It's an insult to customers that they have reaped in profits from free phone numbers just because it's called from a mobile phone. It was bad years ago before I left the UK but especially these days when many if not most of the population uses mobile phones as the only phone in the house.
Why cant they make sure it's brought in for 2014???
Why are we having to wait such a long time???
Yes!