pickup wrote:
What would happen if one placed his /her hire calls via a call centre in a far off land?. The call would be made through a 0845 no in the first instance

Comcab in London already do this sort of thing, when you call in London you could find that someone in Aberdeen in answering the call.
With modern day technology I can install a data system in the UK and have the complete back office system running in America hanlding all the incoming calls as well as radio traffic.
To route calls is so easy and now getting cheaper. I can easily route calls over the internet (just about to install an alternative to out of area lines) and the quality of service is getting higher, the cost of the project means that it will pay for itself in a year. Also it will pass the all important CLI information for screen popping.
As for legal issues, well, then thats another matter. There has been various legal actions etc (Blueline Newcastle for one) in the past but I think that it will not be long now before the law will have to catch up with technology.
One of the way ahead for the taxi/ph industry is to have beauro systems, there is one in Dublin which handles calls for four differant companies and each company use the same call centre staff, radio system and offices.
After all one of the biggest on going costs is the staff.
regards
RadioMan