New office, internet based phone line help
Discussion
Hopefully someone can help, Its all new to me,
Im a small one man band moving into a office, ive always worked from home so used the home phone line and mobile
as a contact on my website.
Im moving into an office next week which has internet and wifi included but no phone socket.
I would like a landline number to add on my website as business to business i feel it looks more professional/trustworthy.
Ive had a very quick look but its still confusing me. Voip, soft calls etc...
In an ideal world something like i buy a number, use an app from my mobile that shows/rings incoming calls to the landline,
is this possible?
I wont really be making calls out from the number so just the cheapest method possible.
Im a small one man band moving into a office, ive always worked from home so used the home phone line and mobile
as a contact on my website.
Im moving into an office next week which has internet and wifi included but no phone socket.
I would like a landline number to add on my website as business to business i feel it looks more professional/trustworthy.
Ive had a very quick look but its still confusing me. Voip, soft calls etc...
In an ideal world something like i buy a number, use an app from my mobile that shows/rings incoming calls to the landline,
is this possible?
I wont really be making calls out from the number so just the cheapest method possible.
I used to use these guys. Peanuts per month and they will sell you a handset if you need one or just divert to your mobile.
https://soho66.co.uk/6832/all/1/Packages.aspx
https://soho66.co.uk/6832/all/1/Packages.aspx
sgrimshaw said:
Teams will eventually supersede Skype, and you can get phone numbers from it.https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/ge...
Are you actually going to use the landline phone? Or use your mobile? https://www.sipgatebasic.co.uk will give you a free number and service, you pay for outgoing calls though.
I have a number from them, just for show as I use my mobile and all my customers use my mobile.
I just leave an answerphone message with my mobile number incase anyone calls.
There are 'softfone' apps for your PC/Mac and for your phone that can take the calls as well. Info on the Sipgate site. You can pick up proper VoIP hard wired phones for next to nothing on ebay or similar.
I have a number from them, just for show as I use my mobile and all my customers use my mobile.
I just leave an answerphone message with my mobile number incase anyone calls.
There are 'softfone' apps for your PC/Mac and for your phone that can take the calls as well. Info on the Sipgate site. You can pick up proper VoIP hard wired phones for next to nothing on ebay or similar.
Edited by megaphone on Tuesday 23 February 14:01
https://www.circleloop.com/pricing
PAYG plan is £5+VAT per month and includes one UK number. Has Apps for Windows/Mac/Android/iOS
PAYG plan is £5+VAT per month and includes one UK number. Has Apps for Windows/Mac/Android/iOS
You're getting good recommendations here (I'd add in Zoom Phone for consideration if you're also going to pay for a zoom meeting account - you can bolt it on for a small fee and have a number associated with it)
I'll try and provide some clarity to the terms you're seeing. Nuances means the following isn't 100% technically accurate but I think it is close enough and makes the principles clearer for you I hope.
The generic term for communicating via your voice using the internet instead of an analogue telephone (landline) is Voice over Internet Protocol or VOIP.
When things first started out this was a means to use digital internet traffic routes to more cheaply distribute telephone calls to their destination than over crowded and expensive analogue lines. The openness of the internet meant that it broke monopolies too and so it became more cost effective, particularly at scale, as well as dispensing with the need to have expensive and failure prone analogue switchboards. Of course there's no assurance that the other end of the phone call is not just an ordinary phone so clever magic happens to connect digital lines to analogue Plain Switched Telephone Networks (PTSN). PTSN is what you'd consider a normal land line to operate over. VOIP solutions take care of that interface so you don't have to worry about it.
In the beginning if you were using VOIP you used a physical telephone that behaved like a telephone and was a perfectly familiar user experience. Pick up the phone, dial a number and it connected. It also would have a phone number associated with it and people could ring you from any type of phone. You've probably seen banks of Cisco 'telephones' in many offices you've been to - these are VOIP handsets.
Then people cottoned on to the fact that since it was all digital and internet based you could use something other than a physical phone to connect. You could use a piece of software on a digital device. This is what a softphone is (software-phone). Think of it as an application on your computer or an app on your mobile that emulates the look and feel of a telephone. It's a bit of an odd concept to get your head around on a mobile which is already a phone but think of it as another phone on your phone using different standards. Because it is all digital they can do the same things like associate a number with it people can ring you on. They dial and your app rings the computer or mobile.
A useful analogy would be to think of VOIP as the internet and a softphone like your web browser you use to browse the internet. And just like web browsers there are standards that mean you can use most softphone apps with most VOIP providers. Often a license is included with a VOIP subscription but there are plenty like Zapier that are free.
Now because it is all digital and inter operable you can also normally set rules with your VOIP provider or on the softphone app as to what to do when someone dials your number. Ring one device, multiple devices, send to voicemail according to schedules - all sorts really. You can also have multiple phone numbers associated with your account and it works (if you want) wherever you have an internet connection which on a mobile is pretty much everywhere. So for example I have US, Canadian and UK inbound numbers associated with my one VOIP account that always rings the app (softphone) on my mobile. Doesn't matter where in the world I am and the inbound caller only pays the rate applicable to the geographical number they are dialling. VOIP providers tend to bundle in a number of minutes and have heavily subsidised tariffs for calling outbound around the world so if I dial from my softphone app it costs me less. If I'm on a hotel's free WiFi in a Brazilian hotel and I call Japan from my softphone app it only costs me 1p/minute and the Japanese recipient will see my UK (or US or Canadian - whichever I choose) phone number on caller ID.
Essentially what you're hoping to do works out of the box pretty much with VOIP solutions.
In more recent years the video conferencing providers are getting in on the act and using the term 'Unified Communications' (UC). People like Skype, Zoom, MS Teams, Blue Jeans, Webex, GoToMeeting etc. all realised that they already did digital voice-to-voice (and video-to-video obviously) communication so they just needed to add the final element of connecting to the PTSN to make it inter operable with regular phones and numbers. It's rarely cheaper than a dedicated VOIP provider unless you also subscribe to their video conferencing offering as well in which case they become worthy of consideration since unified tends to mean a better user experience and less hassle if done well.
If this all sounds complicated then don't worry. Take a VOIP subscription from one of the suggestions you'll get here and the provider is likely to give you guidance on how to setup a recommended softphone on iOS/Android/OSX/Windows with simple instructions that are little more than downloading a piece of software/app and entering a few details. You'll then be able to do exactly what you want.
I'll try and provide some clarity to the terms you're seeing. Nuances means the following isn't 100% technically accurate but I think it is close enough and makes the principles clearer for you I hope.
The generic term for communicating via your voice using the internet instead of an analogue telephone (landline) is Voice over Internet Protocol or VOIP.
When things first started out this was a means to use digital internet traffic routes to more cheaply distribute telephone calls to their destination than over crowded and expensive analogue lines. The openness of the internet meant that it broke monopolies too and so it became more cost effective, particularly at scale, as well as dispensing with the need to have expensive and failure prone analogue switchboards. Of course there's no assurance that the other end of the phone call is not just an ordinary phone so clever magic happens to connect digital lines to analogue Plain Switched Telephone Networks (PTSN). PTSN is what you'd consider a normal land line to operate over. VOIP solutions take care of that interface so you don't have to worry about it.
In the beginning if you were using VOIP you used a physical telephone that behaved like a telephone and was a perfectly familiar user experience. Pick up the phone, dial a number and it connected. It also would have a phone number associated with it and people could ring you from any type of phone. You've probably seen banks of Cisco 'telephones' in many offices you've been to - these are VOIP handsets.
Then people cottoned on to the fact that since it was all digital and internet based you could use something other than a physical phone to connect. You could use a piece of software on a digital device. This is what a softphone is (software-phone). Think of it as an application on your computer or an app on your mobile that emulates the look and feel of a telephone. It's a bit of an odd concept to get your head around on a mobile which is already a phone but think of it as another phone on your phone using different standards. Because it is all digital they can do the same things like associate a number with it people can ring you on. They dial and your app rings the computer or mobile.
A useful analogy would be to think of VOIP as the internet and a softphone like your web browser you use to browse the internet. And just like web browsers there are standards that mean you can use most softphone apps with most VOIP providers. Often a license is included with a VOIP subscription but there are plenty like Zapier that are free.
Now because it is all digital and inter operable you can also normally set rules with your VOIP provider or on the softphone app as to what to do when someone dials your number. Ring one device, multiple devices, send to voicemail according to schedules - all sorts really. You can also have multiple phone numbers associated with your account and it works (if you want) wherever you have an internet connection which on a mobile is pretty much everywhere. So for example I have US, Canadian and UK inbound numbers associated with my one VOIP account that always rings the app (softphone) on my mobile. Doesn't matter where in the world I am and the inbound caller only pays the rate applicable to the geographical number they are dialling. VOIP providers tend to bundle in a number of minutes and have heavily subsidised tariffs for calling outbound around the world so if I dial from my softphone app it costs me less. If I'm on a hotel's free WiFi in a Brazilian hotel and I call Japan from my softphone app it only costs me 1p/minute and the Japanese recipient will see my UK (or US or Canadian - whichever I choose) phone number on caller ID.
Essentially what you're hoping to do works out of the box pretty much with VOIP solutions.
In more recent years the video conferencing providers are getting in on the act and using the term 'Unified Communications' (UC). People like Skype, Zoom, MS Teams, Blue Jeans, Webex, GoToMeeting etc. all realised that they already did digital voice-to-voice (and video-to-video obviously) communication so they just needed to add the final element of connecting to the PTSN to make it inter operable with regular phones and numbers. It's rarely cheaper than a dedicated VOIP provider unless you also subscribe to their video conferencing offering as well in which case they become worthy of consideration since unified tends to mean a better user experience and less hassle if done well.
If this all sounds complicated then don't worry. Take a VOIP subscription from one of the suggestions you'll get here and the provider is likely to give you guidance on how to setup a recommended softphone on iOS/Android/OSX/Windows with simple instructions that are little more than downloading a piece of software/app and entering a few details. You'll then be able to do exactly what you want.
I've used a basic sipgate account for years, mainly for incoming calls so suits my purposes. A software phone on your PC is probably simplest way, I use Cisco SPA303 VoIP phone for it but won't work on Wireless, I think Grandstream do some cheaper ones that are a bit simpler to set up, would probably get one of those if I was doing it now.
Just pay for outgoing calls, seems to be about 1p/min for landline, 10p/min mobile and international rates are varied. I have it on auto topup so just takes a tenner periodically, forwards to mobile if the desk phone is unavailable or goes unanswered for a set period.
Just pay for outgoing calls, seems to be about 1p/min for landline, 10p/min mobile and international rates are varied. I have it on auto topup so just takes a tenner periodically, forwards to mobile if the desk phone is unavailable or goes unanswered for a set period.
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