London Phone Cards

Just realised I forgot to discuss phone cards in my trip report, so here
goes:

The thing that costs the most when making calls from payphones in London
isn't the long distance charge, not by a long shot. It's the fee charged by
the payphone to stay connected to the local access number. 11p a minute.
Ridiculous in my opinion, but it was everywhere so there wasn't anything I
could do.

That said, once you're paying the local fee whether long distance costs 2p
or 5p a minute doesn't make a huge difference, so I'll just mention the
connection quality of the cards I ended up using.

AlphaWorld phonecard - This was a gamble that paid off well. I bought a
10-pound card from a shop near Westminster. It would have lasted more than
my stay had it not been for my technologically inept friend constantly using
the toll free (0800) rather than the local access (020) number. Connection
quality was great.

Pay Peanuts - You get what you pay for. Well they didn't actually give me
peanuts, that would have been an improvement. They did give me a horrid
echo, a connection that sounded more like an AM radio ten feet away than it
did a phone. The card claimed 200 minutes. I used it once for 5 minutes,
next time I used it, 164 minutes were left. Avoid it.

First National Blue Card - First time I tried to use it there was no
response when I would try to use the access numbers but after that it was as
good as the AlphaWorld phonecard.

As with phone cards anywhere, if you don't know which to get, they're a crap
shoot. Avoid stores that only sell one kind unless you trust that kind, if
you look a little bit you can find a place that sells many kinds and clerks
seem to know which are good for calling different countries.

Richard

"Richard" wrote
| Just realised I forgot to discuss phone cards in my trip report,
| so here goes:
| The thing that costs the most when making calls from payphones
| in London isn't the long distance charge, not by a long shot.
| It's the fee charged by the payphone to stay connected to the
| local access number. 11p a minute. Ridiculous in my opinion,
| but it was everywhere so there wasn't anything I could do.

BT are running a trial in the Plymouth and Exeter area where the the current
Minimum fee of £0.20 for making calls from public and managed payphones, in
the areas specified above, will increase to £0.30 (which includes £0.10
connection charge). This trial minimum fee will allow 900 seconds (15
Minutes) of local and national talk time.

I make 30p for 15 mins tuppence a minute, which I think (although I'm not up
on the myriad of BT's charging schemes) is cheaper than using a BT landline
at 8p
a minute peak rate national.

I don't know whether this trial includes the 0845 or 0870 numbers access
numbers for dial-through services like Telediscount.co.uk

It is a trial only, but it does suggest that BT are looking at ways of
making payphones more competitive against mobiles.

| That said, once you're paying the local fee whether long distance costs 2p
| or 5p a minute doesn't make a huge difference, so I'll just mention the
| connection quality of the cards I ended up using.

By 'long distance' I presume you mean International? AFAIK BT payphones
charge the same rate now for local and national calls.

Owain

"Richard" wrote in message ...
Just realised I forgot to discuss phone cards in my trip report, so here
goes:

The thing that costs the most when making calls from payphones in London
isn't the long distance charge, not by a long shot. It's the fee charged by
the payphone to stay connected to the local access number. 11p a minute.
Ridiculous in my opinion, but it was everywhere so there wasn't anything I
could do.

But if the phone wasn't there you wouldn't be able to make the call at all
would you?

Who do you think should pay for the cost of keeping the phone in
the street? FYI the payphone network ran at a loss long before
calling cards (and mobile phones) were invented, so if they couldn't
cover their costs then, there's no chance of them doing so now and
IMO it's not reasonable to use a calling card at a payphone in the street
and not expect to contribute to the cost of the phone being there in the
first place.

tim




That said, once you're paying the local fee whether long distance costs 2p
or 5p a minute doesn't make a huge difference, so I'll just mention the
connection quality of the cards I ended up using.

AlphaWorld phonecard - This was a gamble that paid off well. I bought a
10-pound card from a shop near Westminster. It would have lasted more than
my stay had it not been for my technologically inept friend constantly using
the toll free (0800) rather than the local access (020) number. Connection
quality was great.

Pay Peanuts - You get what you pay for. Well they didn't actually give me
peanuts, that would have been an improvement. They did give me a horrid
echo, a connection that sounded more like an AM radio ten feet away than it
did a phone. The card claimed 200 minutes. I used it once for 5 minutes,
next time I used it, 164 minutes were left. Avoid it.

First National Blue Card - First time I tried to use it there was no
response when I would try to use the access numbers but after that it was as
good as the AlphaWorld phonecard.

As with phone cards anywhere, if you don't know which to get, they're a crap
shoot. Avoid stores that only sell one kind unless you trust that kind, if
you look a little bit you can find a place that sells many kinds and clerks
seem to know which are good for calling different countries.

Richard

"Owain" wrote in message
...

BT are running a trial in the Plymouth and Exeter area where the the
current
Minimum fee of £0.20 for making calls from public and managed payphones,
in
the areas specified above, will increase to £0.30 (which includes £0.10
connection charge). This trial minimum fee will allow 900 seconds (15
Minutes) of local and national talk time.

Either way, it'll certainly make me think twice about complaining next time
the local telco talks about raising the price of a local phone call (per
call charge, not per time) from a payphone to $0.50 CAD.

By 'long distance' I presume you mean International? AFAIK BT payphones
charge the same rate now for local and national calls.

Phoning people in Canada and in the US is what I called 'long distance'
calls.

Richard

Richard wrote:

It would have lasted more than
my stay had it not been for my technologically inept friend constantly using
the toll free (0800) rather than the local access (020) number. Connection
quality was great.

If you'd shopped around, you could have gotten a card that had a much
lower 0800 supplement, you can get them between 3-5p a minute exttra-
beats 11p a minute in the payphone if you ask me.

David

--
David Horne- (website under reconstruction)
davidhorne (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk

Owain wrote:

I make 30p for 15 mins tuppence a minute, which I think (although I'm not up
on the myriad of BT's charging schemes) is cheaper than using a BT landline
at 8p
a minute peak rate national.

I pay 1p a minute anytime from my landline (www.18866.co.uk)

I don't know whether this trial includes the 0845 or 0870 numbers access
numbers for dial-through services like Telediscount.co.uk

It is a trial only, but it does suggest that BT are looking at ways of
making payphones more competitive against mobiles.

I pay 2p a minute from my mobile during the weekday- at other times the
calls come out of inclusive minutes. The call boxes would have to be a
little cheaper before I start using them again...

David

--
David Horne- (website under reconstruction)
davidhorne (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk

"David Horne" wrote
| It would have lasted more than
| my stay had it not been for my technologically inept friend constantly
| using the toll free (0800) rather than the local access (020) number.
| Connection quality was great.
| If you'd shopped around, you could have gotten a card that had a much
| lower 0800 supplement, you can get them between 3-5p a minute exttra-
| beats 11p a minute in the payphone if you ask me.

I think it's the 0800 use from the payphone that makes the card run out
quickly - the recipient of the 0800 call gets charged a lot more to receive
a call from a payphone than an ordinary phone.

Better to pay 11p/min into the payphone + 5p/min on the calling card than
0p/min into the payphone but the calling card runs out at about 40p/min (I
think the Post Office Phonecard payphone supplement is about 37p/min).

Owain

"David Horne" wrote
| I make 30p for 15 mins tuppence a minute, which I think (although
| I'm not up on the myriad of BT's charging schemes) is cheaper
| than using a BT landline at 8p a minute peak rate national.
| I pay 1p a minute anytime from my landline (www.18866.co.uk)

I've considered them but almost all of my calls are off-peak for 30 mins so
BT's off-peak offer of 6p for an hour (less Friends and Family) is actually
good value.

| I pay 2p a minute from my mobile during the weekday- at other
| times the calls come out of inclusive minutes. The call boxes
| would have to be a little cheaper before I start using them
| again...

BT are probably gambling on the fact that most people won't want to stand in
a kiosk for 15 mins at a time, but I'm more likely to spend 30p and have a
bit of a natter than 20p and have to start feeding pennies[1] in after 2
minutes. (I don't have a mobile.)

Owain

[1] nostalgia Not that they take pennies any more; I can remember saving
tuppences for the phone ...

"David Horne" wrote in message
news:1g7nla5.266qvk1b8db5dN%this_address_is_for_sp ...
Richard wrote:

It would have lasted more than
my stay had it not been for my technologically inept friend constantly
using
the toll free (0800) rather than the local access (020) number.
Connection
quality was great.

If you'd shopped around, you could have gotten a card that had a much
lower 0800 supplement, you can get them between 3-5p a minute exttra-
beats 11p a minute in the payphone if you ask me.

Definitely. Only problem was that the first couple places I went to only had
one brand of phone card. Once I did find places that sold many brands, none
would talk about the 0800 supplement, only the rate they'd charge per minute
for the trans-Atlantic connection. If I'd been there longer than six days I
would have had time to investigate the matter further.

For future reference, can you recommend a phone card that:

a) Has 0800 supplemental rates in the 3-5p range
b) Has rates in the 5p range for calls to Canada and the US
c) Does not have connection fees
d) Provides good line quality

Thanks

Richard

Owain wrote:

I think it's the 0800 use from the payphone that makes the card run out
quickly - the recipient of the 0800 call gets charged a lot more to receive
a call from a payphone than an ordinary phone.

Better to pay 11p/min into the payphone + 5p/min on the calling card than
0p/min into the payphone but the calling card runs out at about 40p/min (I
think the Post Office Phonecard payphone supplement is about 37p/min).

Yes, but you can find cards with much lower supplements.

David

--
David Horne- (website under reconstruction)
davidhorne (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk