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- Member
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How many of you that work from home have a separate line or landline number? Also does anyone use one of those virtual landlines?
i'm thinking of getting a landline number as it looks more professional, but I don't want to be paying loads of money out, so wondering what is the best way to go about it. I work mostly from home, but also use a local office, on an ad hoc basis.
All these things we need to think about when expanding/growing a business!
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- Fellow PM.Dip
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I use a voice over ip (voip) service from Voipfone. I then use an app on my
mobile to receive calls over my Wi-Fi connection.
I pay them £2.40 a months for a landline number, which gets rooted to my
Voip line.
So far it has worked really well, and as far as I can make out, no one
knows the difference.
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Thanks, I hadn't heard of them, so will look into it.
What about when you're out & about with no wifi - does it use a lot of data or can you set it to divert to your mobile anyway?
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- Fellow PM.Dip
- Practice Licence
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Where I live there isn't very good data signal so it goes to voice mail,
though I have used it on a 3G signal before. Not sure about the data usage.
The do offer an app for iPhone that will forward any calls to your mobile
when you leave your office. They are working on an Android app, but it
isn't available yet.
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Strangely I wrote a blog post on this the other day. It's at www.bkpr.co.uk
I use voipfone too. For the money the services are great. I have the ability to filter sales and other annoying calls. I can seamlessly transfer it to another phone or mobile if need be. Thats just 2 great features. I have 3 numbers and it costs me about £12 per month.
Kris
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- Fellow PM.Dip
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I also use http://www.voipfone.co.uk/ I had a few technical issues when I first started & found them fantastic - since then, it's business as usual with a landline number at £2.40 per month.
As I'm not home it goes straigt to voicemail, which you can personalise, but you could choose to have the number divert on the fly to any other number - landline or mobile - but you would pay for the cost of that call. Alternatively, the service will email you the voicemail which you can pick up on any device that gives you email access & the ability to hear a .wav file or you can call back a number to hear the message.
I too have the app on my iPhone but don't often have it activated as it can drain the battery life but great if you are away from home & have access to wireless. Otherwise you I have the free download on my laptop with headphone/mic - both of my apps are from Zoiper.
For me, it's agreat way to get a local geographical landline presence without spendng too money & then you only pay for hte calls you make & the VoIP rate is way cheaper.
Hope this & the other posts help!
Jo
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I use TTNC -( http://www.ttnc.co.uk/ ) they're brilliant - I pay £10 per year for the number (a local 01XXX number) then I pay an additional £8 per month to have the services that allow me to divert the calls to a number of my choice that can be changed online, every day if you so wish! I get a customised voicemail, I get an immeadiate notification via email if someone has rung. The notification will give me the callers number and any voicemail if they left one - and I also get a 'call whisper' - i.e. when I pick up my home phone, that I have it redirected to, it says 'Business Call incoming' to me before I answer it, so I can answer it with my business name.
Cheapest best way that I've found, with lots of facilities
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I also use TTNC and find it very good. The only thing I found was that its answering machine can clash with mine on the home line, so it can be a bit confusing for customers. ITs great that you have a check of who has rang etc, it is very good, but of course you cant ring out from that no which is a disadvantage, can you with VOIP?
very best wishes
Lainy xxx
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I'm another that uses TTNC and have the calls forwarded to a Voip phone.
I use http://www.localphone.com for the voip line and calls cost .5p per min to landlines 1.5p per min to mobiles. Cheaper than voipfone but may not have all the bells and whistles.
You can set up the voip to use any of your numbers for the caller id, so that when you make a call it will display your TTNC number.
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- Fellow PM.Dip
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Hello Lainy,
Yes with a voip line you can make out going call to any number, and to the
recipient of will look like it has come from my business voip number.
Torben
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Jo Gsaid:
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I also use http://www.voipfone.co.uk/ I had a few technical issues when I first started & found them fantastic - since then, it's business as usual with a landline number at £2.40 per month.
As I'm not home it goes straigt to voicemail, which you can personalise, but you could choose to have the number divert on the fly to any other number - landline or mobile - but you would pay for the cost of that call. Alternatively, the service will email you the voicemail which you can pick up on any device that gives you email access & the ability to hear a .wav file or you can call back a number to hear the message.
I too have the app on my iPhone but don't often have it activated as it can drain the battery life but great if you are away from home & have access to wireless. Otherwise you I have the free download on my laptop with headphone/mic - both of my apps are from Zoiper.
For me, it's agreat way to get a local geographical landline presence without spendng too money & then you only pay for hte calls you make & the VoIP rate is way cheaper.
Hope this & the other posts help!
Jo
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Jo, is it compatible with any headphone set i.e. ones that you would use for skype, or did you get a special one? I suppose that is cheaper than getting a voip phone?
Just wondering the best way to go about it, as I'm not execting lots of calls, but I don't always have my computer/laptop on (currently having a slow day so doing this from my partners iPad). I guess i'd use the app on the computer when i'm at my desk & the app or divert when away?
Thanks everyone for the replies.
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- Fellow PM.Dip
- Practice Licence
- 186 posts
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Hi Laura, I just bought a cheap headset from Argos & that worked fine. Have a look at their website www.voipfone.co.uk - if you sign up you can try the service for free with no obligation.
Jo
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