'Rounding up' and 'rounding down' refers to what you do with the case that is exactly halfway between the boundaries (in this case, whether you bill 1 min or 2 mins for a call of 1 min 29 s).

If they're rounding up it means they should charge nothing for all calls where 0<call_duration<30 s and 1 minute for all calls where 30 s<=call_duration <1m30s

I just know I'm going to regret this:

Pedant mode ON

"Virgin Media are to start rounding up fixed-line calls to the nearest minute" should be either "rounding up to the next" or "rounding to the nearest". You mean "rounding up to the next".

And "all calls made by Virgin Media customers will be rounded up to the nearest minute" should be "rounded up to the next minute".

Trivial nitpicking perhaps, but an example of simple rounding error logic as frequently exhibited by the billing departments of plot-lossy accounts departments in outfits like Demon.

VirginMedia merely rip off their customers. That's quite different.

And finally "From the 6th October all calls made by Virgin Media customers will be rounded up to the nearest minute"

except for those of us who are leaving VirginMedia between now and then, of course. :-)

Pedant mode OFF

In Canada there is only one mobile carrier with per second billing left that I know of, Fido. And they are owned by Rogers now so I don't know how long that will last.

I was with Clearnet (per second) they were absorbed by Tellus (per minute) and when I wanted to change my monthly minutes Tellus said I HAD to go to a per minute pan so I cancelled and went to Fido, now all of a sudden they call me and offer a per second plan if I'll switch back. Told them to get stuffed.

The thing I don't like about large billing increments is that it means you are charged much more for very brief calls. A large percentage of my calls are to mobiles that ring a few times and then go through to voicemail. The minute I hear that "Your call has been forwarded..." recording I hang up - I wanted to talk to a person, not leave a message.

But of course, the second you are transferred billing starts. I don't see why I should be expected to pay a disproportionate amount for a service I didn't want to reach in the first place.

... More Offshore Centres, More Redundancies, More Faults, Poor Customer Service, No CEO, & Inhouse Mayhem!!

Looks like this company needs to sort out its problems before trying to rip off customers or they will well and truely go down the shitter.

Neither wonder half their staff force are on the sick, more pressure, less wages, more shit to contend with. Its got NTL written all over it.

Before they start increasing prices they want to sort out the issues:

* Do away with outsourcing, especially to india

* Bring back inhoused service & install technicians

* Get a CEO that knows their stuff, and let them run the place (not have 2 members of the board influence and dictate the direction of the company) - see news articles on this

* Make broadband & telephone prices more competitive

* Reduce faults, invest in the network infrastructure

Then maybe they will sort themselves out before they have no customers!!!

I've long held the belief that the only reason BT introduced 1571 was not so much for the convenience of the subscribers, rather as a means to extract money from all the people calling those pesky people who (shock, horror) aren't at home. Or take longer than five rings to answer.

Wankers. BT -- not (necessarily) the people who are out.

Yet again Virgin seem intent on raking in as much money as possible. Just because a competitor rounds up that does not mean that Virgin have to follow suit, this action on Virgins part simply means that they have joined the list of the damned.

On buying a company Branson turns up for a one hour photoshot tells everyone present how great the company will be in Virgins hands then promptly vanishes after handing control of the company over to one of his minions.

NTL Telewest customers since Virgin arrived now have no Sky One probably the most popular channel of the lot. The top broadband package already £35 has been raised to £37 and customer service has gone to the dogs.

Why don't they round up only after a call has gone over 30 seconds into its last minute? A far fairer idea and one that would be far better received by their customers. Is this concept too complex for Virgins obviously overly avaricious executives to understand?

Telewest while on its own was a pretty decent company, the simple truth is that the NTL merger made it worse and Virgin Media have done what I would not credit as possible, they have made it worse still.

@bluesxman: that much is clear. 1571 is a free service. It costs BT to provide it. Therefore at the very least it must be revenue-neutral, which means it recoups its costs through charging the ringer the minimum call charge for connecting the call. I suspect it generates a fair bit more revenue than that though...

As I'll be dumping my mobile.

I changed from BT to Yourphone over 2 years ago and they have not only stuck with the per second charges but have also reduced my package charges and line rental.

It would appear that the CPS resellers are trying to keep their customers happy and costs down, why do the big players need to extract so much from us.

Details on yourphone at www.yourphone.tv