BT has surprised many today by becoming the first UK telephone company to make calls to national 0870 and local 0845 rate numbers free to its 14 million call package customers. BT Anytime subscribers will now get their calls to these numbers for free - as well as all their calls to UK landlines and great rates on mobile calls, for just £4.85 a month.

Naturally customers on BT's Evening and Weekend package will get their 0870 and 0845 calls for free, as well as their UK landline calls, after 6pm every day and all weekend. Previously calls to these numbers cost more than usual, with Sky and Virgin charging around 10p a minute for a daytime 0870 call:


Sadly but understandably the change does not apply to dial-up numbers and indirect access numbers. Typically such dial-up Internet access (narrowband 56Kbps modems) numbers are often pay-as-you-go (payg) and survive purely on the small revenue they bring in, thus they are excluded from discounting. It will be interesting to see whether any other operators follow suit.