Post and Communication
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The UK is well served by post offices, postal
outlets in retail stores, and the well-known red postal
boxes. Public payphones are also commonplace, with
most operated by British Telecom (BT) - regrettably
few these days are of the iconic traditional red design.
Post Offices are open from 9am to 5.30pm Monday
to Friday, and most are also open Saturday from 9am
to 12.30pm. Sub-outlets within other stores should
keep similar hours.
Stamps can be bought at the offices, and also
from vending machines and certified newsagents. A
first class ('fastpost') stamp costs 26p, and this
should get a standard letter anywhere in the UK by
the next day. A second class stamp costs 20p, and
will take on average two to four days to arrive at
its UK destination. Letters to the southern hemisphere
will cost either 44p (if under 10g), or 64p (for 20g).
Aerogrammes costing 37p can be purchased also.
Payphones accept coins and/or phonecards, with
a noticeable shift to the latter in recent years.
Credit cards can be used in a reasonable proportion
of payphones. Phonecards can be bought principally
in £5 and £10 denominations from most
post offices and many newsagents - look for the BT
logo.
Many independent telco's offer international rate
deals that the likes of BT can't (or won't) match
- it can cost only 3-5p per minute to call Australia
or South Africa, for example. For great deals on
international calls home, see Home
Sweet Home.
General Telephone Information
Just as with your home country, different regions
have different prefixes. For example, London
numbers begin with either 0207 or 0208, Cardiff numbers
029, and Manchester numbers 0161.
General telephone number prefixes can be expensive
to the caller, so beware before you start dialing.
While 0800 and 0808 calls are free to the caller,
0345 and 08457 are charged at local rates, and 0870
at even higher rates typically.
Useful Telephone Numbers - Click
Here.
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