Phone Operators Access Charges – from 1st July 2015

9th June 2015

uk calling operator prices for access chargeFrom July 1st 2015, calls to 084, 087, 09 and 118 numbers will be made up of an Access Charge (the charge made by the phone company you make your phone calls with) and a Service Charge (this is the charge collected by your phone company and is passed to the service provider of the NGN you’re calling – for example, Planet Numbers).

This is to make it easier for consumers to understand the cost of calling non-geographic numbers.

Access Charges are always charged by the minute, and will normally be charged for a minimum of one minute, but should now not have any additional call setup cost.

This new charging rule applies only to residential customers. Business customers may continue to use the old charging scheme or the new Service Charges.

Residential Access ChargeRate per minute (inc VAT)
3 Mobile45p
Asda Mobile8p
BT Retail9.58p
BT Mobile30p
EE Home Phone11p
EE Mobile44p to 50p
GiffGaff Mobile15p
Hyperoptic10p
John Lewis Broadband9.58p
Kingston Comms7p
Lebara25p
Lyca Mobile23p
Manx Telecom Landline10p
Manx Telecom Mobile (Contract)25p
Manx Telecom Mobile (Pay As You Go)30p
O2 Mobile55p
Phone Co-Op9p
Phone Co-Op Mobile21p
PlusNet9.58p
Post Office9.5p
Sainsbury Mobile15p
Sainsbury Mobile15p (unconfirmed)
Sky9.5p
SSE Energy10p
Talk Mobile15p
TalkTalk5p
TalkTalk Mobile25p
Tesco Mobile25p
Utility Warehouse landline9p
Utility Warehouse mobile20p
Virgin Media10.25p
Virgin Mobile36p
Vodafone Home Phone 10p (unconfirmed)
Vodafone55p
Zen8p

In the past, many operators have added a surcharge to calls to non-geographic numbers, which could cost significantly more, so these new Access Charges will reduce the variation in call costs between operators.

Business Customers Access ChargeRate per minute (exc VAT)
BT BusinessTo Be Confirmed
BT Wholesale2.876p
Hyperoptic10p
IDNet5p
PlusNet7.98p

Business tariffs may continue to use the old charge bands instead of Access and Service Charges.