[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

Morning Guys

I'm due to sort out my next contract with Orange.

http://business.orange.co.uk/home/small/products-and-services/services-and-accounts/voice-services/pocket-landline

One of the features they now offer is Pocket landline. For £10 per landline per month(or inclusive if spending £35 (plus VAT) or £10 multiples thereafter for each landline) your existing landline will be transferred to your mobile number. There are no costs for transferring the call so big savings on this front. (In my case around £30pm.)

From a client's point of view there is no change in the level of service we offer as they will simply continue to ring the normal landline number and, as I presume most of us do, I divert the call out to my mobile.

The other change is that your landline becomes a "virtual" landline and as such there is therefore no line rental to pay. (A further saving of around £14pm).

I can see this as a big way of saving money but I'm interested to hear your views on it and if I'm missing any potential downsides. The only one I can really see is that I'd be in bother if I ever wanted to make the virtual landline back into a tangible real landline at a later date.

Your thoughts would be most appreicated.

Rog

[Kinver_Clean]

After a lot of faffing my 0800 number goes straight to my mobile.
Saves the BT transfer charge.

[greg2040]

Ok bear with me slightly here as im about to ramble but hopefully it will make sense.

I used to get my landline through BT and get it diverted to my mobile all the time I was out of the office (and being lazy half the time I was in the office as well). This meant that for every call I received I was being charged around 14p per min and often was paying £100 ish a month. 

I got an orange mobile with pocket landline and I now divert all my calls to the landline number given to me by orange. I divert both my 0800 number and another virtual local number to the virtual number from Orange. By having a virtual number away from orange it means I can keep my number and if I leave orange I dont have to go through the ball ache of getting them to port my number. It also means than any calls being diverted are done to another landline which means the call charge is minimal 1p-2p per minute (depending on the number the customer originally called).

All a bit confusing but the bottom line is that the pocket landline is great for diverting calls to your mobile cheaply.

On a seperate note Orange are crap in my area, the signal constantly fails and im still tied in for another year as I cant get out of the contract. I think vodafone do something similar though. Remember to properly check the signal before you sign up :-)

[Andrew Briscoe]

I have landline with talk talk and i divert to mobile most of time.
It costs £5 a month for about 500 mins i think BT was costing me £30-40 a month

[derek west]

Hi Roger, are you saying your home landline number will become a virtual number, what about your home broadband, what number would that come in from?

[david@zap-clean]

Roger, I assume the Orange network covers your area ok...

I'm with Virgin mobile (part of my landline/TV/broadband package), which uses the Orange network I believe.

Calls from Virgin (Orange?) landline to Virgin mobiles are free.  So, I simply pay for a divert service on the landline (cheap). So I can divert my landline to my mobile for free, or any other number I may want to use in the future, e.g. you, when I take a 3 month holiday  .

I've been meaning to ask this question: does anyone use a call handling service?

[Richard Cole]

I use voipfone and have virtual geographic local telephone numbers for my business, cost me in the region of £2 per month which are re-directed to my mobile at around 12p per minute.  Downside is if you want to keep your existing telephone number I don't think you can port them with this service but would need to purchase a new number, again cost around £2.

O.K got to ask why are you the technician formally known as Doctor Carpet?

[Paul Moss]

I thought it was carpet doctor

[jim mca]

David do you pay virgin £ 2 for call divert and then need the xl call package for free calls to your mobile during the day

Jim

[david@zap-clean]

David do you pay virgin £ 2 for call divert and then need the xl call package for free calls to your mobile during the day

Jim

yep, I think that's it. Seems like a good deal to me.

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

Guys

Thanks for your replies. The fact that nobody has said anything specifically against it probably indicates that most of you can't see a problem with it. So I think we shall probably proceed with it.

Greg

Thanks very much for your reply. What I was thinking of doing was porting my existing landline to Orange where it would become a virtual landline and which then would have any incoming calls dverted to my mobile. This would save the costs of both the transfer and the existing landline line rental saving about £50+vat a month.

If I've understood your post correctly, you still have your own landline, with your advertised number (and line rental). Then any incoming calls are diverted to Orange's virtual (hidden number) landline at no cost, and then diverted again out to your mobile.

If this is a correct assumption I can see how that's a good idea in terms of keeping control of your own landline in case you ever wanted to move away from Orange, but presumably still leaves you with the landline rental costs. Am I right?

Derek

I have two landlines into my home-the business one which is the one we are  considering moving to Orange and the second line which is my personal home number and on which is my Broadband.

Richard C

I'm glad you asked!

The short answer is that I've recived a promotion from Doctor to Consultant. Consultants tend to work less hours than Doctors and have more experience. Hopefully fairly soon I'll make it to being Professor!

The long answer is that I've sold my business! The clever bit is that although I've been paid a handsome amount for it I negotiated a "golden handcuffs" arrangement where I still work for the business, draw a salary, have paid holidays but have no responsibility for the running of it. (apart from running the whole show again whenever the new owner is away on holiday).

In reality I am now just a cleaner who gets picked up in the morning, is taken to work, works and then is dropped back at home at the end of the day. The new owner is Doctor Carpet

Cheers.

Rog

[david@zap-clean]

Nice one Rog - congratulations.

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

Nice one Rog - congratulations.

Thanks David

Rog