I'd go for a VoIP service for that purpose. The downside is that you'd have to invest in a decent quality VoIP (SIP standard) telephone, which plugs into one of the networking sockets on your router, not in the telephone wall socket. The upside is that outgoing calls are cheap, too, including international calls. Many are free, if the person on the other end is also a VoIP subscriber.
If you choose a service like Sipgate or Voiptalk, they will allocate you what looks like a normal geographic number and people who call you will not pay the premium as applied to the specific VoIP numbers, 0844 series among others, or standard non-geographics like 0845 and the even more expensive 0870 and 0871.
There are other suppliers as well as those two. Last time I did a google on the topic they came out as best. Watch out for suppliers which charge for switching to other providers' services. Many do. Others, like those two and many more worldwide, will act as forwarders for each others' calls so many calls remain free.
I looked into this whole area a couple of years ago, when the standard application for delivery, Asterisk, reached the stage where it was more usable than for geeks only and it looked as though there could be some good business opportunities. Sadly, a number of big companies with deep marketing budgets and an eye for the main chance had a feeding frenzy and land grab, which means there are very few suppliers offering genuinely good value services, so you do have to be careful.
<edit> Forgot to mention. No line rental costs, no installation costs, you can book a service for free and only pay for what you use (view each suppliers' call charges, much lower than BT) or you can buy, say, 1,000 minutes to UK landlines for £5.99 + VAT per month from Sipgate or 1,000 worldwide landline minutes form Voiptalk for £9.99 per moth + VAT - worst case, 'cos I can't remember whether th VATis included or not. </edit>
Last edited by anotheruser; 06-09-2007 at 05:05 PM.
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