VOIP using Telkom numbers

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trishdbn

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I noticed on my CLOSER account from Telkom the other day that I was being charged for calls to "Telkom" landline numbers even though I was paying for Closer which allows 1300 free minutes per month. I called Telkom and was told that those are calls to "Third Party" numbers i.e. Neotel or Vox or whatever and are chargeable. The only way I will know I'm calling a chargeable number is that there are three beeps before the number starts ringing.

If I'm not mistaken, if you call a VOIP number from a different company that number gets money back (from the call you're making), so you're paying a) to Telkom for the call or for having Closer; b) probably a further percentage to Telkom from the VOIP company for allowing the service; c) to the person you're calling and d) the VOIP company that must make money.

I have no problem with people being in business to make money. I have, however, a huge problem with the numbers being Telkom numbers so I don't know that I'm calling a VOIP number and therefore don't have the choice of not making that call from my Telkom line. Also, more and more call-centres are using VOIP so the calls end up being really long (due to: slow replies by the call centre; long recordings or long explanations - after all it benefits that company to keep you on the line for as long as possible) and my phone bill goes up every month.

Why do these VOIP numbers not have different prefixes like 087 etc so that they are identifiable?

....or am I getting this all wrong?
 
I am glad you brough this up. I picked up the same thing and called Telkom. They had a different explanation though. According to them the Telkom Closer database have not been updated yet to NOT charge Neotel calls. They will subsequently investigate and get back to me. Of course this was 10 days ago so I will have to call them again I guess...
 
I think Telkom has an answer per operator per day.... I told them it was fraud to make you think you're calling a Telkom "free" number and then end up paying for it. I could hear the shrug over the phone.
 
The numbers are not 'telkom' numbers - that thinking is from the old monopoly days which are thankfully over. They are numbers that ICASA allocated to Telkom, belong to the customer and can now be ported to allow the industry to become more competitive and innovative. The fact that Telkom charges additional for these is their commercial decision. If they had more competition, they might make more customer-friendly decisions. ICASA has indicated that the number should have 3 beeps, and customers must learn about that. As more and more people get disenchanted with their service, more and more people will also port their numbers, and hopefully most numbers will end up being "non-Telkom", but at the same time, people will be using alternative providers, so won't have to pay so much to make calls in the first place.
 
I hate to say this, but this is a commercial issue between you and your provider (i.e. Telkom).

I agree that there should be transparency in rates, but you're out of line blaming everyone but Telkom for what is a Telkom pricing issue.

My provider has a standard rate to all land-lines (whether Telkom, Neotel, ECN, Vox, etc).

Telkom are inconsistent; they have a standard rate to all mobile networks, despite Cell C and Telkom Mobile's termination rates being much higher then MTN & Vodacom's, so they cannot use the excuse that their retail charges follow termination fees as they clearly don't. They choose to selectively hike the rates for off-network land-line calls where they're the incumbant and not hike the rates for off-network mobile where they're the new entrant to the market.

The bottom line is that Telkom have this complex off-network land-line pricing because they want to use their established market power in the fixed-line market to make it as unfavorable as possible for people to move to other networks. They could just as easily have a standard land-line rate and include off-network calls in their packages (much as many other land-line/voip providers do), but they choose not to.

This is why there is currently a case before the Competition Commission relating to Telkom's on-network versus off-network pricing.

It's also why any frustrated Telkom customer should do the sensible thing and port their number to a provider that has a clear, transparent and honest pricing structure.
 
not defending telkom, but if you look at their new price list their pricing is pretty easy to understand, if you do not have a caller package, calling a VOIP provider is the same charge as a local call - 50c
 
gmza said:
I hate to say this, but this is a commercial issue between you and your provider (i.e. Telkom).

I agree that there should be transparency in rates, but you're out of line blaming everyone but Telkom for what is a Telkom pricing issue.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply, but I don't think I was "blaming" anybody. I was complaining about unfair lack of transparency by all the service providers, INCLUDING Telkom. I'm sorry if that didn't come across clearly.

The problem I have is that Telkom Closer allows you to make free "landline" calls but then if you're not paying attention to the number you've dialled, you end up with high call costs. The other problem (as far as I know) is that the VOIP calls are free to own network numbers but you pay to Telkom or other VOIP numbers. When I looked into VOX the only benefit to me would have been free calls to other VOX numbers and "pay-back"on calls to my number by non-VOX numbers, but calls to other VOIP networks and Telkom and cell numbers were all chargeable. At the time my Closer package was way better because there weren't enough VOX numbers - or rather that were immediately IDENTIFIABLE as VOX numbers - (that I dealt with) which made it more viable to me than Telkom.

It's disingenuous to expect people to know or "find out" about the porting of numbers; what the 3 beeps are or by first becoming aware of increased phone costs, it's the service providers' job to keep the public informed of such changes.
 
I must agree that the 3 beeps thing has not been publicised enough. It impacts cellphone and 'landline' number porting.

I know some who ported their own number and didn't even know what the beeps were!

In an ideal world I would expect ICASA to drive public awareness through some tv and radio ads. I'm probably expecting too much though.
 
Unfortunately, ICASA's idea of a public awareness campaign is posting a notice in the government gazette. I had this argument with them some time back about the 010 are code and the fact that they had not done enough to make the public aware that it was an overlay code for Johannesburg and not some sort of international code. Their response was that they'd had a "public awareness campaign" but I could find nothing at all, not even a media release, to support that claim.

When it came to porting, ICASA did put together a mini consumer brochure but the extent of their publication was to place this on their web site and in the government gazette. Thankfully, they did at least persuade most of the telcos to distribute information on porting and, notably, Telkom did send a mailshot to all their customers along with their invoices. Realistically, however, many Telkom customers treat the accompanying letters (to the invoices) as junk adverts and throw them out without reading them.

Various providers did raise with ICASA the issue of pricing transparency through numbering in submissions (oral and written) to the draft numbering plan regulations. I was one of those indivuals and spent at least 15 minutes of my timeslot with them bashing on about the point. Those regulations are, unfortunately, more than a year late, and there is still only a very limited provision in the last draft for pricing transparency through numbering, that will prevent premium-rating of numbers that don't fall within premium-rate ranges but won't ensure a consitent rate per number prefix.

The biggest problem here is actually a lack of consumer input to the various regulatory processes driven by ICASA. Whether that is because of apathy, lack of awareness, or because consumers don't see these as being issues, I'm not sure, but until consumers organise themselves and make their voice heard, they don't really have grounds for complaint.

By way of example, with the recent outages on the Vodacom network, the new Consumer Commission wanted to go after Vodacom, but was unable to due to the lack of complaints (it received a grand total of 7 complaints, despite millions of Vodacom subscribers being affected). In effect, the law required a material number of complaints to be lodged to demonstrate that the consumer had actually been done an injustice and the lack of complaints (general public apathy) clearly demonstrated that the public just didn't care that much that their cell phones were inoperable for close on a day.

Getting back to ICASA, I do think that they have a duty to run with proper public awareness campaigns when it is in the public's interest, however, I often don't blame them for not taking a stronger stance on consumer protection issues because the reality is that the consumers at large are just not that interested.
 
I agree with much of this, especially the need for more involved consumers. It's a disgrace that because of general apathy, customers pay more for less and with less service, whilst really good alternatives exist. Active consumers have access to the information and need to educate themselves and act.

All telcos participating in number porting, ourselves included, have agreed by signature to a code of conduct in which they promise to inform customers on what their tariff structures are, and there may be grounds for complaint to ICASA by a customer who feels their tariff structure is not transparent.
 
Yes I agree that consumers are at fault for not complaining enough, however, in their (our) defence, when was the last time something actually happened when you complained or protested about something governmental? A case in point are the street lights outside my house. The WHOLE street's lights have been out for almost three months. I have repeatedly phoned the Durban Corporation Street Light Faults dept. They send a few incompetents out, they can't fix the problem, they go away, still no lights. I have called every week for 3 months and just get shunted around from one person to another who passes the buck to someone else.

ICASA is generally known to be a toothless dog. Telkom you can't complain to because you only have the Faults number as a recourse and we all know how that goes. Have you ever tried looking for an email address for them? The public are weary of complaining about non-private services because it gets them nowhere.
 
trishdbn: I tend to agree with you that ICASA has been toothless (at least in respect of consumer issues), which is why my first suggestion was actually for frustrated Telkom customers to port to other providers.

We may sometimes struggle to make ourselves heard, however, the manner in which we collectively spend our money can collectively have a big influence.

I don't wish to be seen to be spamming, but there are multiple telephony providers that have been mentioned on this forum before that offer good value for money. If Telkom or Vox are not doing it for you, keep shopping. Seriously, there is choice and choice is a reason to rejoice. :)
 
@gmza: thanks for all your input, I will definitely be having a second look at more VOIP options. :)
 
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