SAYNOTO0870.COM - London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number

NonGeographicalMan

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Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number
Reply #330 - Jul 23^rd, 2005 at 2:37am

Interestingly the phone number listed by the Foreign Office for relatives of anyone involved in tonight's bombing in Sharm el Sheikh is 020 7008 0000.

Is this a sign that the authorities have finally got the message or will the Police and the Home Office still be using an 0870 number if there is another terrorist outrage in London or the rest of the UK?

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bill

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Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number
Reply #331 - Jul 23^rd, 2005 at 4:18pm

Quote:

Interestingly the phone number listed by the Foreign Office for relatives of anyone involved in tonight's bombing in Sharm el Sheikh is 020 7008 0000.

Is this a sign that the authorities have finally got the message or will the Police and the Home Office still be using an 0870 number if there is another terrorist outrage in London or the rest of the UK?

I doubt it (I think that number has been used before - for overseas disasters/attacks).

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NonGeographicalMan

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Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number
Reply #332 - Jul 23^rd, 2005 at 4:55pm

Quote:

I doubt it (I think that number has been used before - for overseas disasters/attacks).

The below article seems to show that this number was in fact in use back in 2001.

http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/s/31/31582_emergency_helpline_number_set_...

But presumably at least somebody at the Foreign Office has both a conscience and a brain. Sadly the same does not seem to hold true over at the Home Office.

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bbb_uk

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Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number
Reply #333 - Jul 25^th, 2005 at 1:23pm

I've just had an email back from the Ken Livingston with regard to the gov's use of an 0870. Basically though it is the standard "government" response:-
Quote:

Thank you for your email.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has informed me that the 0870 telephone number used for the Casualty Bureau was provided to them by the Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO).

The contract that dictates how the number is operated and the call charges was negotiated directly between PITO and Cable and Wireless. By using this service, which allowed the MPS to use the resources of all UK police forces by distributing calls, the MPS were able to have five times as many people answering calls from concerned members of the public than we would otherwise.

If the MPS did not use this system they would have had to rely on the MPS Casualty Bureau facilities at Hendon where 40 people can take calls at a time. The system PITO provided allowed 200 people to take calls.

The MPS does not profit from this number and is one of many forces that rely on this system to provide an emergency high-volume telephone number.

The MPS would have preferred a number that did not impose a charge on the caller. However, there was no immediate alternative available to the MPS that would have allowed such a volume of calls to be taken in the
hours after the terrorist incidents.

Once the issue was identified, the MPS arranged with PITO for a local London number to be activated. This gives callers an alternative means of contacting the Casualty Bureau.

Thank you again for writing to me.

Yours sincerely

Ken Livingstone
Mayor of London

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omy

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Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number
Reply #334 - Jul 25^th, 2005 at 1:35pm

Not had my reply from Ken, yet, but no doubt it will be similar.

However his statement that :- "Once the issue was identified, the MPS arranged with PITO for a local London number to be activated", should surely have been "Once the issue was identified by vigilant members of the public, the MPS were shamed into...."

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NonGeographicalMan

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Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number
Reply #335 - Jul 25^th, 2005 at 2:35pm

Quote:

Not had my reply from Ken, yet, but no doubt it will be similar.

However his statement that :- "Once the issue was identified, the MPS arranged with PITO for a local London number to be activated", should surely have been "Once the issue was identified by vigilant members of the public, the MPS were shamed into...."

Let us hope and assume that this has caused enough embarassment for Pito and the Home Office that if there is another major bombing outrage and many casualties that an 020 number will be given at least equal prominence to the 0870.

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Dave

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Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number
Reply #336 - Jul 25^th, 2005 at 3:07pm

Quote:

Mr Livingstone said:
The contract that dictates how the number is operated and the call charges was negotiated directly between PITO and Cable and Wireless.

Who's "call charges"? The caller's or the police's?

He can't mean the caller's charges because that would be set by their operator, therefore I'm sure he will be quick to pass the buck for that. The fact that the price the caller pays can't be lowered because the telco in question would be making a loss, doesn't matter.

Quote:

Mr Livingstone said:
The MPS would have preferred a number that did not impose a charge on the caller. However, there was no immediate alternative available to the MPS that would have allowed such a volume of calls to be taken in the
hours after the terrorist incidents.

Yes there was (and still is), it is called a freephone number. Shocked

Failing that, what about 0844 or 0845?

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bbb_uk

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Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number
Reply #337 - Jul 25^th, 2005 at 3:27pm

Quote:

Yes there was (and still is), it is called a freephone number. Shocked

Failing that, what about 0844 or 0845?

I have already emailed him back (and included several people from The Met, PITO and Hazel Blears MP, with exactly that question and I also pointed out several other flaws in his reply but basically the main query I had was in reply to:-
Quote:

The MPS would have preferred a number that did not impose a charge on the caller. However, there was no immediate alternative available to the MPS that would have allowed such a volume of calls to be taken in the hours after the terrorist incidents

I've basically replied to this statement with the statement released by Cable&Wireless and that is other options were given to them but the 0870 was chosen instead. All other lower cost NGN's have the same facilities/options. I also pointed out the COI guidelines and the recent newspaper and TV coverage of the increasing use of 0870 numbers by the government (and companies), etc and the £1 million in revenue gained from the use of the Passports' 0870 number.

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« Last Edit: Jul 25^th, 2005 at 3:29pm by bbb_uk »

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Dave

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Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number
Reply #338 - Jul 25^th, 2005 at 3:34pm

Some more comments about this statement:

Quote:

The MPS would have preferred a number that did not impose a charge on the caller. However, there was no immediate alternative available to the MPS that would have allowed such a volume of calls to be taken in the hours after the terrorist incidents.

The MPS would have preferred a number that did not impose a charge on the caller, so why has it gone for one that places an excessive charge on the caller?

A geographical number would be 'free' to many people on inclusive call packages and charged at their 'normal' rate on whatever calling packages they are on.

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Keith

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Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number
Reply #339 - Jul 27^th, 2005 at 11:51pm

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You must have written a very persuasive letter indeed.

The BT line to me when I have challenged them over 0870 for several years is that this is a special enhanced form of call switching that costs them more to run and so justifies an extra cost.

They never offered any satisfactory explanation whatsoever as to why 0870 was even excluded from Friends & Family.

.

Sorry - reply to an old posting!

a) I didn't really write a persuasive letter to BT to get my refund. In 2002 the BT operator and billing staff were as confused as the rest of the population on the cost of 0845 and 0870 numbers (well not so much confused as plainly having the facts wrong - ie believing they cost the same as local and national calls) so it was easy then to get them to misquote the cost.

Eventually when escalated to staff who did know the difference I could still win the argument. In particular as I mentioned before I would point out that the rate for a National Rate call was not the same as the rate for a National call. For any normal person these mean the same thing. Although they argued it didn't without really trying I could get them to refer to 'National rate' when they meant rate for a National call, etc. Whoops argument lost.

In other words I got them tongue tied and they couldn't deny I had been mislead over the cost of my calls previously as they were doing it themselves as we argued over it. So they had to refund me.

I was offered £10. I demonstrated my actual costs and was given about £135.

I have to say they held their hand up to it.

Unfortunately things have moved on since then and the staff are more on the ball, so I don't think you would achieve this now.

b) I also didn't get a satisfactory answer as to why 0870 numbers could not be put on Friends and Family. Interestingly I was told I could not have 0845 numbers either, until I pointed out that I had 2 0845 internet providers already on F&F.

In 2002 the operator and billing staff did not have a clue what was going on with these numbers.

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NonGeographicalMan

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Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number
Reply #340 - Jul 28^th, 2005 at 12:17am

Quote:

In 2002 the operator and billing staff did not have a clue what was going on with these numbers.

I'm surprised to hear all this went on as recently as 2002. By then the scam was very well entrenched indeed and BT Option 3 was already launched.

Had this been back in 1998 and 1999 and the days of 0990 I could well believe that BT staff did not quite understand what was going on.

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« Last Edit: Jul 28^th, 2005 at 12:18am by N/A »

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Forum Admin YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 374 Gender:	Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number Reply #341 - Jul 28^th, 2005 at 6:44pm I have just received a press release in regards to the use of 0800 numbers for future casualty numbers: See the following thread for full details: http://www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?board=news;action=display;num=...
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NonGeographicalMan

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Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number
Reply #342 - Jul 28^th, 2005 at 7:05pm

Looks like a case of game, set and match to us on this one then.

They are even going to publish a geographic number too for mobile users and overseas callers. I suspect that Cable & Wireless actually deserve far more credit for this than either the Police or Miss Blears. I suspect that they have offered to do this for nothing under the terms of the current free of charge Pito contract so as to avoid the possibility of any further bad publicity.

One wonders why Miss Blears ever tried to pretend that they had to use an 0870 number for this line and didn't instead just admit that it was a cock up that now revealed would soon be corrected.

But then perhaps that's like asking why the Police had to compound their already grotesque error by pretending that the unfortunate Brazilian gentleman hurdled the ticket barriers at Stockwell rather than instead just calmly using his Travelcard as was in fact actually the case.

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anonyone Newbie Offline Posts: 2	Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number Reply #343 - Aug 4^th, 2005 at 9:41am Can I just throw in this point. Huge number of complaints were put in about the use of the 0870 number by staff (from all over the UK) who were manning the emergency call lines right from the very start when they were asked to man the switchboards.
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NonGeographicalMan

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Re: London Blasts - Using 0870 as Emergency Number
Reply #344 - Aug 4^th, 2005 at 10:00am

Quote:

Huge number of complaints were put in about the use of the 0870 number by staff (from all over the UK) who were manning the emergency call lines right from the very start when they were asked to man the switchboards.

That's very good indeed to hear. It shows that the work being done to make people aware that 0870 is a premium rate call is beginning to have an effect.

Yet Miss Hazel Blears had the audacity to come out with all that rubbish about them not being able to handle the volume of calls without using 0870 (the same garbage quoted daily by BBC customer service staff). Why didn't she just accuse Pito of having cocked it up, demand the resignation of its chairman and chief executive and have the matter immediately rectified.

Instead of which she defends the use of 0870 and then finds it is to be changed to 0800 anyway because it would appear that more publicity sensitive Cable & Wireless have more or less insistet that this should happen. At least that's how it looks.

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