Business Voip & LCRs Challenge BT's Price Hikes

As the 'credit crunch' strikes down even more corporate victims & consumer spending hits an all time low, outlook looks bleak for many British businesses, except for British Telecom the UK largest communications company who has increased call setup fees, line rentals & call charges.

BT line rentals today vary from £12.23GBP per PSTN line, £15.92GBP per ISDN channel on a one year contract. VOIP service providers have widened the price gap with SIP line rentals of £1.50 per month per trunk with unlimited outbound channels on a 3 month contract.

BT ISDN2 connection charge has risen to 299GBP which is an increase of 25% to the same time last year. With 80 connection charge per channel on ISDN 30, BT paves the way for VOIP Telecom providers & LCRs many of whom offer free connection without lengthy tie-ins.

As of September 08 BT has increased it's call setup fee to 7p which means that unless you have opted for a call plan or switched to LCR, you will be paying 7p for connection before you start your call. Many telecoms companies charge a minimum of one minute whilst UK VOIP providers lead the pack with minimum call charges of 1.5p - 2p & per second billing.

UK mobile rates vary from 8p per minute through LCRs on long term contract and large minimum spend to BT's 19p standard rate. Minute rates to national numbers vary from 0.8p to BT's 4p. UK ITSPs appear to be the most competitive again with minute rates of 9-11p to mobiles & 1.25-1.5p to landlines, without any long term or spend commitment.

'Oneplan' by BT offers 5p capped calls to landlines & 20p capped calls to mobiles for 1 hour. To qualify for this plan customers require 2 other BT services on a 2 year contract. The plan is good value to businesses that make higher than average length calls - however a recent survey of 2 million calls carried out by Telecost suggests that the average call length is less than 112.seconds - therefore for most companies lower per minute rates would make more economic sense.

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.

Those companies who are thinking of migrating telecoms to VOIP will need the following:

- phone system that supports SIP or IAX

- reliable internet service

- necessary upstream to cope with call requirement

- ip telephones

- advice from an experienced professional with good track record