What is the best (cheapest) way to get an extra phone number.

golfball13

Hi,

I run a driving school, and recently I've started to expand my business. In the past I've used my home number, in addition to my mobile. I've started to get more calls at home, and I'm looking for a way to get a local number, diverted to my home number (or mobile??) so that my wife knows when it's a work related call.

What options have I got? And if a separate number gets diverted to my home number, does it ring differently?

Thanks in advance.

Rob

benjus

If you have a BT line you could use BT Call Sign - costs £2.50 per month and gives a different ring tone.

Another option is SIPGate (http://www.sipgate.co.uk/) - this gives you a free local incoming number which can be diverted to your landline (costs about 1p/min).

Alternatively, you could receive the SIPGate calls directly using either an IP phone or an Analogue Telephone Adapter (e.g. Linksys PAP2) connected to a normal phone. A basic IP phone costs about £45, while the PAP2 costs about £25 from ebay (new). You will need a spare Ethernet (RJ45) socket on your broadband router for this to work.

golfball13

Funnily enough, I was just looking at sipgate.

As a short term thing, this looks good, and if it seems to work, I might look at getting one of their phones to hook up to my router. I'm off to play with the setting and see what else it can do.

Rob

Buzby

Also it may be worthwhile to check out Skype - their Skype IN service is equally flexible, and if you get a mobile on 3UK your diverts can be free too...! Theres a good spread of normal geographic numbers as well!

iniltous

Who is your broadband ISP ( if you have one ?) BT broadband comes with a VOIP number (if you want it) and you can pick a non geographic( 0560 i think), or one thats the same STD code as your existing landline
If you plug a phone into the broadband hub you can set it to only ring when someone calls your VOIP number , and if the 'main' line
is in use with a call (incomming or outgoing ) the VOIP number would still ring,
If you dont make any outgoing calls its free, you dont need an extra cable to the house so no install fees either