Telephones in Britain
The standard and quality of telecommunications in Britain is very high. The market is also very competitive, with a variety of options available that cater for any telephonic need. In essence your choice boils down to trading off quality of service over price and finding an acceptable level.
British Telecom (or “BT” as most people call it) dominates the market. Whether it be in the workplace, at home or on the street, BT is omnipresent – but at a price. For residential users the cheapest BT rates are in the evening and on weekends. Charges are based on duration of the call and the distance involved. BT is the most expensive for calls made during office hours on weekdays. BT is also the most expensive carrier for international calls.
BT’s famous red phone boxes charge a minimum of 20p to initiate a call that will last you at least two minutes for a local call. Extra time will naturally require your paying more as the call continues. These phone boxes accept a variety of payment methods, but none of them accept all the possible methods.
You can pay with:
• coins (but not notes, so keep 20p pieces handy)
• BT’s pre-paid calling cards (available in various values at newsagents and retailers)
• BT’s Chargecard (a debit card linked to your residential BT account once you have a line) • Credit cards (Visa, MasterCard and their affiliated debit cards of Delta and Switch)
On high streets in areas popular with backpackers or other people in transit, you will find shops with booths inside offering cheap international calls. Their prices are on average less than half BT’s call rate to the same destination. The quality of the connection varies wildly. The delays and echoes on the line can mean that a useful conversation takes more than twice as long and the rate per minute of actual communication thus doubles. Not so cheap if this happens.
Most residential areas have a small newsagent that often doubles as a grocery retailer. These “corner shops” (as the locals call them, even though they may not be on a corner) usually sell a host of international calling cards issued by independent telecoms companies. These cards have a certain face value to them, usually £10. That card then allows you to call anywhere over “their lines” at their rate for the destination dialled. It usually works on the basis that you can pop into a public phone box, dial an 0800 number (or something similar), enter the card’s PIN/ID/code (or whatever the card calls it) and then dial the country and number you want. You can then speak until your credits are used up or the call is ended by you. Any unused credits should be automatically saved and be valid for further calls at another time. Of course you can use these cards from home once you have access to a residential line. Even over a residential line the quality of the connection varies, but in the main and over time these cards will work out much cheaper than calling directly through BT.