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transfer phone number to VOIP

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steelman99
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transfer phone number to VOIP

#519776

Postby steelman99 » August 4th, 2022, 12:15 pm

presently have phone and FTTP broadband with BT, contract due to finish soon. All the present deals for FTTP are for broadband only if you want a phone line as well they are charging £5 a month extra.

We havent used the landline phone for outgoing calls for about 3 years, but recieve phone calls from elderly parents on the landline. have been looking at some of the VOIP services so that we can either recieve incomming calls on our laptop, or have them go straight to the mobile

Couple of questions if anyone can help
Firstly whats the correct order to do this all in, - do we transfer the number whilst the landline is still live, rather than waiting for the contract to finish. or is it something we hae to do at end of contract

Secondly can anyone recomend a voip provider that is either free or cheap - cost of outgoing calls is irrelivent as there wont be any , just a few incoming calls, or having a way of sending calls to the mobile

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Re: transfer phone number to VOIP

#519779

Postby scrumpyjack » August 4th, 2022, 12:28 pm

I use Zen and for the phone their Digital Voice service which is £7 a month with effectively unlimited calls, landline and mobile, and an answerphone. You just plug your existing phone into their Fritzbox router. I have a Dect one so all the other phones in the house work fine too.

It all just works and Zen handle the number transfer and any problems. Their customer service is very good.

If you want to keep the old landline number, don't cancel that service until it has been transferred.

I now have no landlines in the house.

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Re: transfer phone number to VOIP

#519781

Postby staffordian » August 4th, 2022, 12:30 pm

I was about to post a similar question!

What I have gleaned so far is that Sipgate is worth looking at for the phone service. They offer a free package, with a random (I believe) phone number, then, for a one off fee, you can transfer your current phone number to them.

I think it's essential not to cancel your existing landline first. The transfer has to be from a live number.

I'll await other replies with interest.

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Re: transfer phone number to VOIP

#519783

Postby pje16 » August 4th, 2022, 12:32 pm


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Re: transfer phone number to VOIP

#519819

Postby Laughton » August 4th, 2022, 2:34 pm

Both Mrs L and I use sipgate basic. We transferred our landline numbers before our BT contracts expired so no landline here any longer.

Mrs L uses hers for outgoing and incoming calls on a digital cordless phone around the house whereas I receive all incoming calls on my mobile phone linked to my router around the house and anywhere else where there is a mobile or wifi signal. All my outgoing calls are made on my mobile phone with an unlimited calls deal.

So my "landline" is effectively free and Mrs L's costs about £10 every couple of months (compare that with what you're paying BT and you'll be asking why you didn't do it sooner).

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Re: transfer phone number to VOIP

#519850

Postby staffordian » August 4th, 2022, 4:37 pm

My aim at some point in the not too distant future is to get a VOIP phone set up, followed at some point by transferring my current landline number to it once we are au fait with how it all works. I realise that getting used to it prior to transferring our current number will be a problem, as Mrs S and I both make outgoing calls from our mobiles and with an unknown VOIP number, we shall not get any incoming calls, but simply having it there and working will be a start.

Once this is done, then swapping to a FTTP connection will be trouble free.

My queries relate more to the technical side of achieving this changeover. Ideally we would like two cordless handsets. One charging station would suffice; we currently have this sort of setup with our landline. Base unit is in the lounge, one phone is on charge all day and one is on our coffee table. We take this one to the bedroom overnight, then next morning it goes on the charger and the second phone takes it's place. This seems to keep the batteries in good nick. With the current setup, the charger is the transmitting base unit, connected to the mains and the BT socket. Is this setup replicated with VOIP phones, or do the phones simply have a charger but "talk" to a separate unit connected to the router?

A further query. Our current Sky router has a port on the back which is labelled UK phone. What can be plugged in here? A normal landline phone, a VOIP phone and if the latter does it obviate the need for a separate base unit? Nothing I have read seems to explain precisely what this port does.

On the subject of VOIP phones, a neighbour has suggested a Yealink W52P. Does anyone know if these are any good, or can they recommend an alternative? Many seem to be desktop corded phones aimed at office use whereas we want cordless ones similar to a typical cordless landline model.

Thanks for any insights.

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Re: transfer phone number to VOIP

#519935

Postby Midsmartin » August 4th, 2022, 9:38 pm

I use Https://voipfone.co.uk

From memory, it's £2 or £3 a month to maintain a UK geographical, ie, old landline number.
I pay for two extensions (£1 each I think. Maybe it's gone up). One causes a physical VoIP telephone to ring. The other one I divert to my mobile number. Both ring, and I answer whichever is convenient. If I choose to answer my mobile, I incur the cost of a mobile call for the diversion.

There is a failsafe setting, so that if I have no internet, calls can all be diverted to another number.

I don't think I've had any problems with it recently. I did have a router once that didn't seem to work too well and I spent ages adding forwarding and firewall rules to fix it. But I don't think I needed to do anything with my current router.

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Re: transfer phone number to VOIP

#519948

Postby Redmires » August 4th, 2022, 10:50 pm

Another happy Sipgate user here. We swapped over to VOIP a couple of years ago and have had no problems at all. We transferred our landline number, just inform Sipgate of your requirement before cancelling with BT or whoever, cost was about £10. If you migrate your number you get a Sipgate number as well so end up with 2 landline numbers. Sipgate has no monthly ongoing costs. You only pay for outgoing calls (1p/minute + VAT) but we use mobiles for outgoing calls anyway. We use our old Panasonic DECT phones via a Grandstream ATA (costs about £45) so we have 4 extensions around the house. No need for a specialist VOIP phone if you use an ATA. Other features that are useful are free voicemail. If I'm out and about and miss an incoming call then I get an email telling me of the missed call, along with a recording of the message if the caller has left one. Very handy.

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Re: transfer phone number to VOIP

#520037

Postby yorkshirelad1 » August 5th, 2022, 11:05 am

+1 for sipgate. I transfered my Mum's landline (that she and my Dad had used for 50+ years) when she moved, and couldn't take the number to the new house, onto sipgate, and mopped up a few calls over time from people who hadn't updated their phone books etc etc. It now sits pretty much unused and free on sipgate (apart from a few cold calls which are fun to wind up), and is occasionally useful to make a few international landline calls.

The transfer to sipgate itself took a bit of careful thinking about to do it in the right order etc; there are already several replies on this thread in that vein. A couple of things to watch for: imagine if you have a landline and broadband package with BT, and you want to transfer the landline to sipgate
  • IIRC, if you move to sipgate, sipgate do all the work, and you don't have to tell BT anything
  • The act of moving the landline to sipgate will (probably, I'd need to recheck) move the landline and cancel the package and therefore the broadband, so be ready for loss of broadband (if that applies).

It's something I need to look into, but with the advent of landlines being moved generally away from copper to VOIP, I'm wondering what happens to the 'ownership' (although technically a rental) of the landline. If BT move my landline to their VOIP, can I transfer it out? I think this remains to be seen. I'm already beginning to think about moving my own landline onto sipgate, so that at least I have some sort of influence over what happens to the landline when/before the widespread shift of landlines to VOIP happens

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Re: transfer phone number to VOIP

#520054

Postby doug2500 » August 5th, 2022, 11:43 am

I went with voipfone and am very happy. Their customer support on my initial query was very good too.

The best part is that they dealt with transferring my number and cancelling BT so I didn't have to deal with the useless pile of cr*p that is BT at all.

Edited to add that I was out of contract and had no broadband.

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Re: transfer phone number to VOIP

#520080

Postby staffordian » August 5th, 2022, 12:54 pm

yorkshirelad1 wrote:The transfer to sipgate itself took a bit of careful thinking about to do it in the right order etc; there are already several replies on this thread in that vein. A couple of things to watch for: imagine if you have a landline and broadband package with BT, and you want to transfer the landline to sipgate

The act of moving the landline to sipgate will (probably, I'd need to recheck) move the landline and cancel the package and therefore the broadband, so be ready for loss of broadband (if that applies)
.


That is interesting, and does seem logical.

My thoughts were to set up a VOIP line and port my landline number so when I swap to FTTP the phone line isn't going to be an issue. I currently have my "BT" landline and broadband via Sky, so assume from what you suggest that if I do this, I might lose my broadband.

The answer is probably to set the VOIP system up with the randomly allocated number and nothing else, then when I'm ready to move to FTTP, let the two contracts overlap; porting the number once the FTTP is up and running then cancelling the Sky broadband.

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Re: transfer phone number to VOIP

#520218

Postby UncleEbenezer » August 5th, 2022, 9:01 pm

staffordian wrote:I was about to post a similar question!

What I have gleaned so far is that Sipgate is worth looking at for the phone service. They offer a free package, with a random (I believe) phone number, then, for a one off fee, you can transfer your current phone number to them.

I'll await other replies with interest.


That's exactly how I recollect my move to sipgate. First get set up with a number they allocate, then port your existing number.

The question then arises what phone you use. I bought a couple of handsets - one for upstairs, one downstairs - plus an adaptor for a wired phone on my desk, but found they were all crap. A software phone installed on my mobile is much better. But I daresay the equipment has improved since my 2013 experience.


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