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On Thu, 2 Jul 2009, Brad Rogers wrote: > On Thu, 2 Jul 2009 17:41:19 +0100 (BST) > Gordon Henderson <gordon+dcglug@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Hello Gordon, > >> clamped down on them after people were dialling 0800 numbers to then >> use a calling card to make cheaper calls than the mobile companies >> would give them... > > Obviously, I came to the party late; That must have happened before I > got a mobile, as I wasn't aware of such possibilities. You call an 0800 number - the recipient then has to pay (say) 3p a minute to terminate the call. You then take a pre-paid calling-card number, and present a dial-tone - punter dials a new number, and gets connected to (eg) Poland. Card co. charges punter 4p a minute off their card, so makes a net of 1p a minute... But all the time the mobile co's. are getting nothing, but having to maintain the towers, network, etc... So they got fed-up and started to charge for 0800 numbers at a rate over what it would save you by using a calling card... I've never paid much attention to this whole calling card things - plenty of people seem to do it though and it's quite popular in the US and other countries with less well developed infrastructure and greedy monopolies ;-) Gordon -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html