ComReg considers industry proposals regarding wholesale charges
for non-geographic numbers
Non-geographic numbers are used by organisations to allow
incoming calls at a fixed or reduced rate. This can be of
particular use to businesses who want to ensure that customers can
contact them, without fear of incurring large costs eg, in the case
of help desk or customer service numbers. In Ireland
non-geographic numbers are identified by the prefix 18xx eg, 1850
or 1890. The retail charges for calls to non-geographic numbers are
capped within Ireland.
As regards wholesale charging arrangements, the current practice
has been for fixed-line operators to deduct a retention from retail
revenues ie, retention charges. Fixed line operators have
tended to set these retention charges based on the regulated
wholesale interconnect rates of the fixed line incumbent,
eircom, so that each fixed line operator is in effect
charging the same wholesale retention charge as eircom.
