As Flextel mentioned in the February Service Update, recent Ofcom price controls means that from the 1st October you will need to pay for call forwarding when using 070 numbers.
"We [Ofcom] will impose a charge control on all 070 providers, to be set at the same rate as the mobile termination rate. This will come into effect on 1 October 2019. We anticipate that the likely effect of this will be that the cost of calling a 070 number will, in future, be shared between the person making the call and the recipient."
This means that our 070 tariff must become the same as 01,02 and 03 numbers.
One possible benefit is that 070 numbers may be included in many mobile and fixed telephone price plans, as per a normal mobile number. This may open up the opportunity for our Virtual SIM service to be used on this range.
If you want to keep using your 070 numbers, then simply make sure you add FlexCredit to your account. You can either Buy FlexCredit or Exchange your Rewards to FlexCredit.
Alternatively you can save money by taking out a Plan.
If you want to move to a free range e.g. 0870 or 0871, then you can do this easily by using our free Change Number Announcement service.
We've just added hundreds more 0800 Freephone numbers to our stock. Now you can add a professional 0800 number to your business from £1*, while stocks last.
We've also reduced the price of thousands of other numbers ranges, including 0300 Government and Charity Numbers, plus the 03 Corporate number ranges for that powerful business image.
The popular 0845, 0844, 0870 and 0871 ranges remain free of charge to connect and operate for UK landline and mobile termination.
...find out which is the best number range to suit your business needs
*Brand Matching and Cherished numbers cost more.Although we've had to increase our prices in some areas, we're confident that our service still delivers world class value for money, with most powerful call management features still included free of charge.
The price of calling UK landlines and mobiles is being increased by 1p per minute.
The call setup fee is rising to 5p per call. This still represents good value and compares very favourably to other network providers (see notes below).
Our Plans still offer major savings as they apply to the whole of your account. All other major UK Telco's require a separate plan for each phone number in your account. Flextel's "whole-account" plans are much easier to manage compared to the tricky per-number plans of our competitors.
We are proud that we have managed to hold our Plan costs stable for nearly 5 years. Over that time the retail price index has risen by over 10%.
Each call within your Plan will not be charged the set-up fee, saving 5p per call.
From 1st April, the price for Landline and Mobile Plans will increase by either £5 per month or 10% (whichever is the greater).
Also Landline Plans will no longer include international destinations, due to Brexit induced exchange rate fluctuations. If you need international calls included in your Plan, then please upgrade to a Mobile Plan, which include International calls to many destinations e.g. Europe, USA, Canada, Australia etc.
The monthly cost of virtual mobile numbers is rising by 30p per month to £1.50.
NotesLast year was a great year for Flextel and besides tuning up the service, we also released some powerful new products including:
We also updated all our Smartphone Apps and made them even faster and added a handy recent calls list and a Callback feature. So now your mobile phone really can be your office and you can present your main office number, even if it's not on the Flextel system e.g. on BT or Virgin.
Ofcom continues to ignore excessive mobile access charges for 084 services (over 55 pence access fee compared to our very reasonable wholesale service fee of 5 pence ex-VAT). Instead Ofcom has decided to create more costly, complex and unclear regulations.
On the 19th December Ofcom published its Final Statement on 084 numbers. Unusually this only gives 084 users just 4 weeks, over a major UK holiday period, to decide whether they need to register their 084 numbers, at a cost of £186 per year!
In the past Flextel has spent considerable time, effort and money to try and influence Ofcom, mostly without success; this time there is nothing we can do about it. So, if you are using 0845, 0844, 0870 or 0871 numbers you may need to check how you use them and then decide if you need to register with the PSA.
However, if you're unhappy about this short notice or if you wish to complain about Ofcom's methods please write to...
If you use any of our 084 or 087 numbers and do not wish to spend time checking whether you need to register with the PSA, then you can simply migrate your numbers to an identical number, except the leading 08 is changed to 03. e.g 0870 321 1000 becomes 0370 321 1000. We have all the 03 mirror codes available for our customers and will provide them to you free of charge.
Your 08 numbers can then be taken out of service, using our free changed number announcement; so then the PSA need not be contacted and the new Ofcom/PSA regulations no longer apply to you.
For a limited time only, Flextel are offering a full and seamless 03 Mirror Number connection service, free of charge, on a first come first served basis. This offer is subject to your account status and at Flextel's sole discretion.
All you have to do is:
Please be aware, we will process your requests, as batches, in early January, and before the Ofcom deadline.