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Sat 4th Feb 8:34

New data from Skycom shows the average length of calls to 0800 numbers is 5 minutes and 5 seconds, meaning that mobile phone customers may be paying as much as £1.70 per average call for what many customers understand to be a free service. Such freephone services are provided for people to request an emergency breakdown service from the RAC, to call the account enquiries line for British Gas, or to open a new account with a bank such as Santander.

James Barrington-Brown, Managing Director of Skycom, said, "Orange and T-Mobile this week announced reduced fees for calling 0800 numbers via their networks. While this is a step in the right direction for consumers, it is still a far cry from the "freephone" concept such numbers are meant to represent."

"With other providers still stubbornly maintaining long-standing expensive pricing for calls to freephone 0800 numbers, mobile phone customers are often unwittingly paying premium rates of as much as 35p per minute."

Vodafone charges 35p per minute; O2 charges 20.4p per minute; Three charges 15p per minute; and even under their revised pricing Orange and T-Mobile will be charging 7.4p per minute for calls to 0800 freephone numbers.

According to figures from Ofcom, consumers pay around £1.9 billion for calls to non-geographic numbers each year. Such calls account for around 12% of the UK's total mobile call traffic volume, and generate 10% of the total revenue for mobile networks.

Companies often set up 0800 numbers to provide a free service for their customers, and are not aware of charges made by the mobile operator which can be set deep within the mobile operator's website, leaving consumers struggling to understand the exact cost.

Customers who have woken up to these charges are increasingly turning to an iPhone, Android and Blackberry app from telecoms provider Skycom to avoid these charges and the subsequent shock bills that calls to these numbers can generate.

Skycom's 0800 Wizard provides a replacement landline 01 or 02 number for every 0800, 0500 or 0808 freephone number. As all mobile operators include calls to such numbers in the minutes bundled with their monthly tariffs, freephone calls via the 0800 Wizard are truly free of charge as long as the user has bundled minutes remaining.

Skycom launched the 0800 Wizard app at the beginning of 2011 in response to the continued reluctance of the mobile operators to lower their prices for freephone calls, and it has since been downloaded over 200,000 times. In light of such obvious consumer outrage, it is perhaps little wonder that mobile operators are finally starting to take the issue of 0800 call costs seriously.

Current users of the 0800 Wizard are calling 0800 numbers an average of 8 times per month. This means that the average user is saving between £3.04 and £14.24 every month. Across a whole year this is as much as £170 saved per person.

Skycom's 0800 Wizard is completely free to download from the iTunes App Store, Android Market and Blackberry App World. The app has gained many positive user reviews since its launch and has overall ratings of 4 or 5 stars on every platform.

James Barrington-Brown, Managing Director of Skycom, said: "Many of the people we have spoken to believe the 0800 numbers they are calling should be free of charge, and feel swindled by their mobile networks when their monthly bill comes through. Ofcom found that as many as 63 percent of people are not confident of the prices mobile networks charge for non-geographic numbers. Companies with freephone helplines are often disappointed that mobile networks are making a profit from what they intend to be a free service for their customers. Of particular concern is that 1 in 4 low income households have no landline phone, and so rely on their mobiles for all phone calls, including calls to freephone numbers such as their gas or electricity company helpline. Skycom's free 0800 Wizard app provides a landline alternative for any 0800 number, avoiding the hidden charges and potentially large bills of mobile networks - helping to put the 'free' back into 'freephone'.

Notes to Editors

For further editorial information or to arrange interviews contact skycom@pwkpr.com or call 020 7609 1900. More information about 0800 Wizard at http://www.skycomuk.com/0800wizard.php Statistics on user experience of 0800 numbers and usage and cost figures are taken from Ofcom consultation document "Simplifying Non-Geographic Numbers: Improving consumer confidence in 03, 08, 09, 118 and other non-geographic numbers", published Dec 2010, p45-47, 55. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/simplifying-non-geo-numbers/summary/non-geo.pdf Average call length to 0800 numbers derived from usage of 0800 Wizard application across all platforms during May and June 2011. Pay monthly contract charges for calls to 0800 numbers sourced from providers' websites on 25th August 2011.

About Skycom www.skycomuk.com :

Skycom Ltd is an Ofcom-regulated telecommunications provider based in Camberley, Surrey. Established in 2000, Skycom specialises in innovative business communications tools and solutions, including providing telephone numbers to business users. Skycom's 0800 Wizard is free to download from the iTunes App Store, Android Market and Blackberry App World, and is rated at least 4* in each.