Virtual landline

bwyatt95

I’ve been looking at starting a business and have been told that to reassure my potential customers I should get a local landline number. Now I don’t want to use my personal home number and I won’t actually be at home very often so wouldn’t want to miss those important calls from prospective clients. I have seen that EE and a few other providers actually do a virtual landline service whereby you can run your business from your mobile phone, from setting opening hours so you cannot be called when on holidays or “out of the office, to creating personal messages in real time to keep customers updated on how to get in touch. I would be more than happy to pay £10pm for this service.

i_am_sy

bwyatt95

EE is owned by BT which also owns a large chunk of the landline and broadband infrastructure in the UK, so it's fairly straightforward for them to be able to offer a service like this at a low cost.

giffgaff unfortunately doesn't have this advantage, nor is its service geared towards businesses at all. So it's unlikely they would ever be able to offer the same at a competitive price.

jaymailsays

bwyatt95
I was tipped off that giffgaff were about to court business customers, Covid-19 has been a spanner in the works but it is unlikely they would offer virtual landlines, unless and until the Virgin Media Merger goes through, a year from now.

I used Vectone a virtual incoming landline number, when it was £6 per month a while back but outgoing calls are routed through your mobile number.

endorphin

bwyatt95 as a left field comment what's wrong with having a mobile number for people to contact you with? I'm not sure what reassurance a local landline number would give a potential customer as, as you have hinted, you can buy a virtual one.

Alternatively why not buy and use an 0345 number instead?

katie84741

bwyatt95 this seems like a good service at a very reasonable cost for what you are loiking for. Nice touch that it has buinsess hours which alot of landlines don't and the phone would just ring and ring if nobody's there

jaymailsays

bwyatt95

http://www.virtuallandline.co.uk/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgbrBjovc6QIViK3tCh1DJgBnEAUYASAAEgKJFfD_BwE

nfh

i_am_sy EE is owned by BT which also owns a large chunk of the landline and broadband infrastructure in the UK, so it's fairly straightforward for them to be able to offer a service like this at a low cost.

Orange UK offered landline numbers for mobile phones from its launch in 1994, long before it merged with T-Mobile UK to form EE in 2010, and long before EE was bought by BT in 2015. It's therefore misleading to suggest that EE offers this service by virtue of being owned by BT.

jeremylalou

Interesting. I did not know that.

jaymailsays

endorphin
Consumers, for whatever reason often do feel reassured by a fixed line UK number, especially if it happens to be one whose exchange they recognise.
Would you trust a new bank, insurer, garage, doctor, cab company who only had a mobile number?

It is all subjective and probably not that rational to trust a fixed line over a mobile but if you are fighting for business, you use every tool at your disposal.

endorphin Alternatively why not buy and use an 0345 number instead?

According to BT, renting an 0800 or 0345 number, incurs in addition to the monthly fee a contribution to the incoming call costs and that is something that is difficult to cap or control.
https://business.bt.com/products/voice/numbers/

surviver

endorphin When you are give safety advice by various reputable organisations You are told look for a landline Number rather than just mobile, plus for some people it can be expensive calling mobiles. You also get advised to look for an address, not just a P O box number ( even if they do not have shop you can write to them) This does go a little way to avoid scams and easier for police to catch some lawbreakers.

surviver

endorphin To have a landline you have to have an address., Mobile phones can be throw away untraceable ones.

scrupps

Have you looked in to VOIP - I used voiphone a few years back to obtain a virtual number and it worked pretty well. I’m sure there are now more options, probably via downloaded apps on your phone?

harrrrrry

surviver an address, not just a P O box number

It's also a good idea to do a web search for that address, and if it comes up "931 other businesses located at this address" you know its a mailbox not a physical location. Being able to write to an address doesn't necessarily mean you can identify the business owner from it, which is necessary if you need to take action against them.

jaymailsays

surviver To have a landline you have to have an address., Mobile phones can be throw away untraceable ones

Think we have established you do not need an address for a virtual landline number but if you did, you could have it as ex-directory, in which case your address for the number is not publicly associated or searchable.

surviver

harrrrrry Thank you for that, I didn't know about "931" . It is sad we have to mistrust and do security checks all the time but criminals are often pretty clever people nowadays.

davidw59

You can set up a Sipgate local number free of charge. Simply set up the sip account in your mobile's settings and all incoming calls to the sipgate number will come through to your mobile via voip, using your mobile data. Your phone will display that the call is coming in via the sip account.

In my android phone, the sip account is set up via the Calling Accounts option in the Calls Settings menu.

Once you have a sip account, this can also be set up in a voip phone or analogue telephone adaptor, connected to your home broadband.

i_am_sy

nfh

That's not what I said is it..

I said "at a low cost"

giffgaff isn't competing with Orange from 1994 (a company that also did landline telecom at the time) it's competing with BTEE today, which has a huge advantage over giffgaff in this sense, so it would be very hard for giffgaff to offer a good price and make a reasonable amount of profit by offering such a service.

So to that end it's very unlikely giffgaff would ever offer it, especially as they don't actually officially support business use at all, and if they where to focus on business they would first need to offer good mobile solutions before they consider landlines.

harrrrrry

Various companies provide a forwarding service, some of them providing the airtime but in many cases you just get the number and it could be forwarded to giffgaff or any other number.

https://www.startpage.com/do/search?cat=web&language=english&query=landline+number+for+mobile