OIC! You said "have to" when you meant "choose to". Yes, you can still choose to use a prefix provider, like 18866, with BT. Dunno about Zen; their rep should find out if it is permitted.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Tue 31-Dec-13 20:17:31)

Zen have said elsewhere in this forum that you cannot use prefixes like 18866 without being charged

I know exactly what you mean Pete.

When Mercury first offered their services alongside BT in the early 90's you had to dial a 5(?) prior to the desired phone no. in order to get routed over the Mercury network. Otherwise the call was routed via BT by default. National trunk route calls tended to be cheaper on the Mercury network in those days compared to BT.

I would suspect that, in the case of the ZEN service, the basic call routing and charging is totally managed by ZEN whereby no prefix routing code is necessary as the choice of call routing via Zen or BT is not on offer to the end user.

Other prefixes for 141, etc. are as detailed by Zen in their terms and conditions.

In reply to a post by ToneDeaf:

When Mercury first offered their services alongside BT in the early 90's you had to dial a 5(?) prior to the desired phone no. in order to get routed over the Mercury network. Otherwise the call was routed via BT by default. National trunk route calls tended to be cheaper on the Mercury network in those days compared to BT.

Thanks ToneDeaf that is what I was on about, so I am not losing my marbles yet

In reply to a post by Scottish_Pete:

Thanks ToneDeaf that is what I was on about, so I am not losing my marbles yet

Just after the Mercury prefix, was then the Mercury button handset, which had the code in a blue button, and then 10 years after that we got dialler boxes that you plugged into the phone socket before the phone cable.

These were then replaced by something called "Carrier Pre Selection" where essentially the prefix code was dialled for you - so line rental went to BT retail, and calls went to your chosen provider.

Now other companies (e.g. O2 and BE) can offer Wholesale Line Rental where they are paid direct for the whole line cost, and manage the billing, but the line is still operated by BT retail using BT owned hardware at the exchange.

Then of course you have the full unbundle (e.g. Sky, TalkTalk) where the line is only plugged into that telco's equipment, and that telco pays Openreach a fee to maintain the copper wires.

Same difference!

In reply to a post by mickbzen:

Hi Pete,

In reference to the text question ill need to ask our product manager but he is off until the 6th Jan (Lucky him ) so ill come back to you on that one.

Mike,

Any info back on the text question? Cheers

Hi,

Sorry for the delay in coming back to you. We do support this and there is no charge for receiving speech texts.

Thanks Mike for the reply.

I take it is the same as BT you require to have Caller Display to receive a text message to your handset, otherwise you get a speech text and it is free to send text?

In reply to a post by Scottish_Pete:

I take it is the same as BT you require to have Caller Display to receive a text message to your handset

No, you don't need Caller Display, altho' most suitable handsets have it. What you need is an SMS-enabled handset to receive true texts; otherwise if it is not SMS-enabled you will receive the text in spoken form.

Duuno why Mick replied just on 'speech' texts, when your Q was on texts in general.