British Telecom in recent weeks has shocked much of the telecoms industry in announcing that the national rate prefix 0870 and local rate number prefix 0845 will be included in their customers “Inclusive Minutes”.

These are typically numbers that charge callers a higher rate than the typical 01 or 02 geographic landline prefix however although some call them premium rate numbers they are not.

Network Operators including Virgin Media, Cable & Wireless and an array of private network operators generate a return from these calls and so due to this it’s reported that BT have put aside £10m to offer this package to it’s residential customers.

Although the revenue share on the 0870 range is soon to be eliminated currently calls to the number run at around 8.0p per minute and so customers who call businesses frequently will enjoy rather large savings with this new package.