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Do ComReg make money from their 1890 helpline numbers?
Back in August I mentioned that I’d seen an e-mail from a ComReg insider who said:
The Locall number we advertise is a minor source of revenue for us – the bulk comes from levies imposed on those firms we regulate.
Given how 1890 numbers are supposed to operate (you don’t normally make money from them), this confused me a little, so I decided to try to find out more.
Well, on October 9th I’m due to receive a response from ComReg to a Freedom of Information request asking for the details of how much exactly they do make from these 1890 numbers.
Updates to follow, hopefully.
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions
1890 / 1850 / 0818 Frequently Asked Questions
What is an 1890 number?
An 1890 number is known as a LoCall number. It was devised to allow customers call businesses from all over the country, but for a flat local rate. So, you could call a business in Dublin for the same cost as calling a business around the corner.
This was originally devised before there was major competition in the telephone market in Ireland. Now, with the advent of more than just Eircom in the home landline market, and with more than just Eircell in the mobile market, call costs to 1890 numbers can vary widely – from 5c per minute (the original target price) to 31c per minute on some mobiles.
What is an 1850 number?
An 1850 number is known as a CallSave number. It was devised to allow customers call businesses from all over the country, but for a flat rate no matter how long you’re on the phone to them. So, you could call a business in Dublin or around the corner for 1 minute or 31 minutes, all for the same cost.
This was originally devised before there was major competition in the telephone market in Ireland. Now, with the advent of more than just Eircom in the home landline market, and with more than just Eircell in the mobile market, call costs to 1850 numbers can vary widely – from 5c to 31c per call.
What is an 0818 number?
An 0818 number is known as a National Call number. This type of phone number was devised to allow businesses charge an extra small premium above the regular cost of the call.
Therefore, any companies that provide this type of phone number as a contact point are actually making money from their customers calling them.
Are 1890 numbers free?
No, calls to 1890 numbers are not free. 1890 numbers can cost you from 5c to 31c per minute depending on whether you’re calling from a landline or a mobile.
Are 1850 numbers free?
No, calls to 1850 numbers are not free. 1850 numbers can cost you from 5c to 31c per call depending on whether you’re calling from a landline or a mobile.
Are 0818 numbers free?
No, calls to 0818 numbers are not free. 0818 numbers can cost you from 5c to 31c per minute depending on whether you’re calling from a landline or a mobile.
Save more money using your mobile phone
One of the primary reasons for this SayNoTo1890.com website is to help you save money on your mobile phone bill, as well on your landline bill.
The TopTips.ie website has recently published a series of top tips which will help you cut your mobile phone costs by even more.
Click here to find out more about how to save even more money.
ComReg to probe lo-call mobile tariff - SayNoTo1890 press coverage
Sarah McInerney and Jan Battles
The Sunday Times, September 27th, 2008
ASAI set to call on ComReg to investigate pricing anomoly
“LO-CALL” numbers, set up by state agencies and businesses to save callers money, cost up to 49c a minute when dialled from a mobile phone.
The cost of phoning 1890, 1850 and 0818 numbers is shared by businesses, but only if the caller is on a landline. Because mobile phone operators treat these numbers as “non-standard calls”, consumers are being charged at normal rates and don’t get to use their minute allowance. As a result, it is much cheaper to call a business’s normal landline instead of the supposedly low-cost alternative.
The Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI) is to raise the anonmaly with ComReg, the telecommunications regulator. “There is definitely an issue here of consumer knowledge, and we will be having a discussion with ComReg about it,” said Orla Twomey, its assistant chief executive.
In a bid to help mobile phone users circumvent lo-call numbers, Diarmuid MacShane, a consumer watchdog, has established Saynoto1890.com. “The 1890 numbers were set up to allow consumers call national businesses at local rates,” he said. “This works fine if you call from a landline. For example, the Eircom lo-call rate is about 5c per minute. Yet mobile phone companies are charging much more for the same call. It defeats the purpose of having a lo-call number.”
MacShane has found alternative landline numbers for the Financial Regulator, the Data Protection Commissioner and ComReg. “I’ve just managed to get a normal landline number for e-Flow,” he said.
He has also posted a list of prices charged by different mobile companies for phoning to lo-call numbers. Vodafone is the most expensive — its pre-pay customers are charged 49c per minute during peak times for a call to an 1890 number. The cost for “pay monthly” customers ranges from 18-35c.
O2 customers are charged 35c per minute for lo-call numbers, while Meteor’s are levied at 15c per minute.
Dermott Jewell, chief executive of the Consumers’ Association of Ireland, has criticised mobile phone companies’ refusal to include lo-call numbers in minute bundles. “The onus needs to come heavily on mobile providers to change their package deals,” he said. “Now that ComReg is aware of this, I would be surprised if something was not done.”
In its defence Vodafone said that “mobile offers the mobility that landline customers do not benefit from. It is important when considering value to the customer to consider the overall pricing structure rather than one price in particular”.
O2 said it charges a flat rate of 35c per minute to “ensure transparency” and the exclusion of some non-standard calls from bundled minutes on price plans is “standard industry practice”.
Meanwhile the National Consumer Agency has begun an investigation after O2 customers discovered that account upgrades they had earned had been revoked. Dozens of users found that the upgrades had disappeared when they went to use them.
The customers have been told that the eligibility criteria had changed and they need to spend more money on calls if the upgrade is to be reinstated.
One user on Talk2O2, the company’s online forum, said: “If I had been told by the customer service agent who gave me the reference number that the upgrade was only going to be valid for two weeks, I would have upgraded immediately.”
O2 said: “It is standard industry practice to review and update criteria [for mobile phone upgrades] on an ongoing basis. Such reviews result in both increased and decreased entitlements to upgrading customers depending on the time of review.”
The company said anybody who rang customer care, or was called by customer care to advise them they were eligible for an upgrade in the last 90 days, is still entitled to it. Customers entitled to an upgrade but who did nothing about it have lost out.
Cost of calling 1890, 1850 and 0818 telephone numbers
We all know that 1850 is a CallSave number, and that 1890 is a Locall number and that 0818 is a National Rate number. But do you know how much you’ll pay to call each of these numbers?
Check out our analysis on the Call Costs analysis of the costs of calling these numbers from most of the phone service providers available in Ireland.
Reading all that - the costs don’t really seem all that lo, or that you’re going to save all that much.
Cirque Du Soleil : Quidam - at the The O2, Dublin
As a total aside for this site, I thought I’d mention about the fact that the Cirque Du Soleil show Quidam is coming to Dublin next March/April.
If you’ve never seen a Cirque Du Soleil show, I would highly recommend it. You can check out clips on YouTube but these don’t do the live experience justice.
The tickets go on sale on Friday 19th via TicketMaster. Unless you’re registered on the Cirque Du Soleil site - where you can get a link to buy your tickets now.
Now, the tickets are €69.50 which is pretty steep, and there’s the usual crazy €6.50 per ticket administration charge for Ticketmaster, but the show is most definitely worth the money. Check it out if you can!
1901, 1902, 1903 etc. - Do you know what all the options are?
There’s been lots of people coming to this site recently looking for the costs of calling various customer service 190* numbers. I wasn’t sure what they all meant, so I did some checking. Here is the listing for the companies to which these numbers are allocated.
| 1901 | Eircom |
| 1902 | TalkTalk |
| 1903 | Not Active |
| 1904 | BT Ireland |
| 1905 | Meteor |
| 1906 | SwiftCall |
| 1907 | Vodafone |
| 1908 | NTL / UPC |
| 1909 | O2 |
The theory behind these numbers is that they’re free for the customers of the networks themselves. So, for me, 1909 is free when I call from my mobile. Unsurprisingly I suppose, there is no information on the O2 website on how much it might cost me to call 1901, 1906 or any of the other numbers above. A quick check of the Vodafone and Eircom websites reveals the same scenario - 1907 is free for Vodafone BillPay customers, and 1901 is free for Eircom customers, but no cost information on calling the other numbers.
You should be aware that in some situations, you actually won’t be able to call some of these numbers if you’re on a different network.
Beware of how 0818 numbers are displayed - it could cost you!
Back in April, we posted some observations from the UK about how their LoCall and CallSave equivalent numbers were being advertised - making them look like ordinary numbers rather than numbers that were likely to cause consumer pay extra in some cases.
My speculation back then was that it was possible that we could have the same thing here in Ireland with the 0818 range of numbers. By quoting the numbers as 081 8….. it might look like some other type of mobile number maybe.
And here’s the first example of that that I’ve seen (apologies again for the crappy photo quality - N95 phone strikes again):
As a comparison for prices, assume you’re an O2 mobile customer, and you think that this is just another mobile number (081) rather than the “universal access” number (0818).
Calling this number will cost you 35c per minute instead of being deducted from your bundle of minutes - and that could give you a nasty surprise on your bill.
The cost of calling 0818 numbers from most of the Irish telephone service providers is detailed here.
ComReg makes money when you call their 1890 number
For some reason that doesn’t make sense to me yet, whenever you make a call to ComReg, be it looking for information or trying to complain about something, you’re helping ComReg make money for themselves. They’re there supposedly to be of service to consumers, yet you call them and they make money from your phone call.
From a SayNoTo1890.com reader, we were provided with the following snippet of an e-mail from a ComReg employee:
The Locall number we advertise is a minor source of revenue for us – the bulk comes from levies imposed on those firms we regulate.
If that’s the case, I wonder how much money other Government organisations are making from making us consumers ring them on their 1890.
I say I don’t understand this because normally businesses who have these 1890 numbers end up paying the balance of whatever the call would cost. It’s normally only 0818 numbers that a business would make money one.
Summer Holidays is now just California Dreaming
ValueIreland is back in the country after 3 weeks away on holiday in the west coast of the USA. Blogging will resume in earnest later on in the week.
Thanks to those who e-mails and posted comments in the past few weeks - I promise I’ll get around to responding during the week also.
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