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Archive for February 5th, 2009

Over the last month or so, the rollout of a new batch of numbers has appeared indicating that the availability for 0844 and 0871 numbers is now becoming low.

You should be aware that 0843 Numbers are charged at the same rate as 0844, not the much cheaper 0845 numbers. Being an extension of the existing 0844 number range, they are also revenue bearing, meaning that if you own the number your provider may provide you with a revenue stream for every call your customers make to them.
Calls to these numbers are charged at a maximum of 5 Pence per minute from a BT landline, other operators will vary.
Currently these numbers fall under 17 different possible pricing codes from BT (ff29, g10, g11, g12, g16, g17, g18, g19,  g20, g22, g24, g26, g27, g28, g6, g6, g8 and g9)

0872 and 0873 numbers are extensions of the 0871 numbers and are charged at the same 0871 rate. Again these are revenue bearing numbers which earn you a commission for every call made to them, assuming of course that you own the number.
Calls to these numbers are charged at a maximum of 10 Pence per minute from a BT landline, other operators will vary.
Currently these numbers fall under 11 different possible pricing codes from BT (ff15, ff28, g12, g13, g14, g15, g23, g24, g25, g6 and g7)

For further information on the costs of these calls, specific to your provider, you should consult your specific vendors price guide.

Attenuation is a measurement of the loss of ADSL signal strength on your ADSL line and is a very rough way of measuring both how far you are from the exchange and how good your connection is likely to be.

You can find out your current line attenuation by logging onto your ADSL router or modem and looking at a page usually labelled statistics or connection status.

No matter how many times you switch your broadband to new providers you are unlikely to make a great deal of difference to your connection if your line attenuation is too high.

The following table will give you an indication of potential speeds based on your line attenuation.

- Less than 12Db = 24Mb
- Less than 35Db = 8Mb
- Less than 60Db = 2Mb
- Less than 75Db = 512kbps
- More than 75Db+ Likely Poor Service

Of course there are plenty of factors that can cause speeds to fluctuate, including;

- Your ISP’s performance and package offerings
- Electrical Interference
- Internal Wiring Issues
- Internal Interference
- Computer Configuration
- Router Performance
- Contention Ratios