Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações (ANACOM) decided to set maximum prices for telephone calls to numbers using the prefixes 707, 708 and 809. The aim of the regulator is to protect the legitimate rights of consumers, namely, to ensure access to information about tariffs.
This measure, which shall be compulsory as from 1 February 2004, is the result of several denunciations and claims put forward by consumers and operators to ANACOM. The investigations carried out later by this Authority ended up with several situations of inappropriate use of the prefixes 707, 708 and 809.
In these situations, they detected the use of numbers initiated with these prefixes for the provision of services under a concept similar to audiotext (added value), being closer to this one namely in view of the practised prices. Audiotext, as well-known, has specific prefixes for its provision (601, 607, 608, 646 and 648), as well as specific information obligations about the price and nature of the services.
The numbers 707, 708 and 809, in turn, are not subject to these information obligations and are intended to allow access, always in the same manner and with the same price, from any location in the Country, to a certain number. The numbers starting with 809 are designed to allow as well sharing of the cost of the call between the user and the holder of the number. These numbers are used, for instance, by product information services or by customer support services of companies.
Thus, and in order to make the information that consumers have about these prefixes safer and more transparent, it was decided that calls to numbers starting with 707 and 708 cannot be priced at more than €0.10 per minute for calls originated in fixed networks and at more than €0.25 per minute for calls originated in mobile networks. Tariffs will be per second after the first minute.
In calls to numbers starting with 809, the maximum price will amount to €0.0738 per minute, equivalent to the price of a national call after the 10-second initial credit, off-peak, in the universal service tariffs. These numbers will also be priced per second after the first minute.
During the decision-making process, ANACOM consulted the main interested agents in this matter, including telecommunications operators (Coltel, Jazztel, Novis Telecom, OniTelecom, Optimus, PT Comunicações, TMN and Vodafone) and consumer organizations (Instituto do Consumidor, DECO and UGC), as well as other operators (Dialmédia, Tecnologias Multimédia, Media Capital Telecomunicações and World Premium Rates).
Most of these entities were in favour of tariff ceilings for those numbers.
Consult:
- Definition of maximum retail price for calls to ''707'',''708'' (universal access services) and ''809'' (shared cost call services) numbering ranges https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=420676
Consult press release:
- 707, 708 and 809 prefixes under investigation https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=145417
