Call barring dilemma

altyfc

Hi everyone

I complete on a property purchase today - a luxury riverside apartment - which we plan to run as a holiday let

We would like to be able to offer guests a live landline in the property, but don't want to incur horrendous call charges. It would be convenient for guests if we could provide them with the ability to make local (and perhaps national) calls for free (we could absorb the cost if it was only a few £ in the week), I think, but I don't really want them calling mobile or other numbers as then it could get a little out of hand cost-wise.

At the moment I'm signed up for BT's anytime plan for free local and national calls 24/7 (£5 per month) and call barring (£3 per month). However, I'm beginning to realise the gross limitations of the BT call barring service. I had thought that I would be able to barr mobile numbers but it appears I can only do that if I also barr national calls in the same bundle, thus negating most of the advantages of the anytime plan.

I'm aware that you can get Phone Guards but I think there are multiple telephone sockets in the property so would I need to get several of these or can I just place it on a 'master' socket? Plus I would like to provide free WiFi and I'm not sure if those guards interfere with what we would want to do there.

I also read about Euphony as an option somewhere but not sure what the deal is there.

Any advice would be appreciated. In short, we'd like to provide a service where there's a telephone line for the convenience of guests and don't mind covering the cost to the tune of circa £5 a month (ideally to cover unlimited local and national calls) but we want to avoid the possibility of large phone bills. Plus we'll want broadband (we were going to go to Zen for that, simply for their reliability - we use them at work). Thanks.

Mark_In_Hampshire

I can see what you're trying to do - depending on whereabouts it is, I guess mobile coverage isn't brilliant for your guests.

However do check that the line there can actually receive a broadband service to make sure your WiFi idea will work, the more remote a property is, the less chance it will be able to have ADSL at all or at any useful speed. Can second the opinion on Zen however - they're very good.

The landline idea does strike me as incredibly dangerous (for you) - hotels put phones in their rooms, but that goes via a central switchboard, as far as I know hospitals outsource the service and the charging. You don't mention international calls - you'll want to be barring those too.

Perhaps you could go onto a Pay as You Go type service on the phone whereby you top it up in advance with £10 (I think BT used to do something like this) thereby limiting your maximum exposure.

altyfc

Thanks, Mark. The property is in a town centre and mobile coverage is OK with the networks that I'm familiar with. Just thinking it's a nice service to provide to guests if their mobiles shouldn't work for any reason (be that coverage or low battery or whatever...)

The BT call barring allows me to block international calls in the same bundle as national and mobile. It would be more helpful if they would just let me block international and mobile (and not national) since the anytime plan allows national calls FOC, but I guess BT don't want to be that helpful. Grrr...

Heinz

Blanking plates on all except one BT socket and a Commtel Phone Guard on the remaining one?

altyfc

I looked at those having seen you mention them in another thread, Heinz, but those Commtel Guards say on them that they are for dialup connections only... does that mean I couldn't set up free WiFi broadband...?

Thanks.

Heinz

altyfc wrote: »

I looked at those having seen you mention them in another thread, Heinz, but those Commtel Guards say on them that they are for dialup connections only... does that mean I couldn't set up free WiFi broadband...?

No, that was the reason they were originally manufactured but times have moved on.

For most people they now perform a pure telephony function - allowing 20 numerical sequences* through but barring all others (except 999/112). Broadband simply passes through unaffected.

* Local calls - '2', '3', '4, '5', '6', '7' and '8' (seven 'allows');
'01xyz' calls - the local STD code (an eighth 'allow');

You never allow '1' because of the possibility of calls via the operator or 118 calls being made but you might allow '151' to allow fault reporting (a ninth 'allow').

You might allow a few others (like all 11 digits of your own mobile number), but I can't think of many more.

Jemma-T

altyfc wrote: »

Hi everyone

I complete on a property purchase today - a luxury riverside apartment on the edge of the Lake District - which we plan to run as a holiday let ( http://www.*************** )

SPAM reported.

MarkLS12

altyfc wrote: »

Plus we'll want broadband ...

Since you are planning to have broadband anyway, have you thought of using VOIP for outgoing calls?
i.e. Have the BT line for incoming calls only and use VOIP for outgoing.

Most VOIP companies work like a pay as you go mobile, so you cannot spend more than the credit on the account.
VOIP would allow international calls, but rates would only be about 2p per minute to landlines in most European countries, so it may be appreciated by foreign visitors to your apartment. Great selling point for return visitors.

There are lots of companies with various packages, for example:
http://www.voiptalk.org or http://www.sipgate.co.uk