[calmore]

Not really an item for sale as such but thought this may be of interest to other forum users.

Tesco have reduced their internet phones to under a tenner (and they includes £5 of call credit.) 

Now, the important thing is that you get another local phone number with one of these phones. That means you can have your existing BT number exclusively for business calls and your "Tesco" one for personal calls, or vice versa.

There's no line rental to pay and calls are charged on a "pay as you go basis". The phone simply plugs into a USB port on your PC. It also means that you can make/receive calls on TWO numbers at the same time.

No more embarrassing confusion as to whether it's a customer calling or a friend!
(I have no connection with tesco, by the way)

[Ian Gourlay]

I have been looking at these.

Do you have to have your Computer on all day for these to work.

Can you have a local number anywhere or does it have to be your area code.

Can you record a voice message on your computer and have the phone pick it up.

[calmore]

The PC has to be on to make/receive calls..if the PC is off all calls go to voicemail (I believe you can record a message) or can be diverted to another number.

You can choose any area code from the choices they give. Not all codes are available. I chose a number: 0123 45xxxxx for example.

Personally, I'm going to use the BT line for incoming business calls..the wife can use the Tesco one to talk to her friends so she won't block any incoming calls from customers!

[Ian Gourlay]

What im looking for is either an answerphone that will allow me to record a long public information message  Wondered as this was link to computer if I could do it through the system.

I know there are providers but I already have a spare line so want to keep it in house if I could

Sounds as if Tesco system could be useful for setting up a virtual office in another city.

[calmore]

Yup, you could have a local phone number in another city.