A new business mobile phone service has been lauched:
http://www.mobilenewscwp.co.uk/2010/10/mvno-launches-as-pbx-service/


Quote:

MVNO Gradwell Mobile offers SIM cards with fixed line numbers for businesses looking to reduce the cost of taking calls on the move SME unified communications supplier Gradwell has launched an MVNO offering PBX functionality. Gradwell Mobile, which runs as an MVNO on Three’s network, allows business customers to get a SIM card with an 01, 02, 03 and 0870 geographical fixed line number attached to it, rather than an 07 mobile number. Gradwell said this removes the need for businesses to hold separate mobile and fixed line numbers.

More information on the company's website at [url=www.gradwell.com/mobile[/url]]www.gradwell.com/mobile[/url]

Basically, Gradwell provides business telephony solutions via a VoIP service. The monthly standing charge is £10 (exc VAT).

The cost of receiving calls on a Gladwell mobile phone (with a 01/02/03/0870 number) is 3 pence per minute. Outgoing calls from a mobile handset cost an extra 3 pence per minute (3.53ppm inc VAT), on top of the normal call charge (that is the call rate to make the call from the VoIP phone).

For example, a call to UK landline is 1.25ppm (1.47ppm inc VAT) from via VoIP and 4.25ppm (4.99ppm inc VAT) when made from the mobile device.


The key advantage is the cost saving of receiving calls on a mobile phone from a normal rate (01/02/03) number. Call diversion is usually expensive.

However, the main reason for bringing it to the attention of members of this website is because there are many similarities between 084x/0871/2 premium numbers and mobile phone numbers. It will be interesting to see whether the 3ppm exc VAT can be maintained and whether a similar service could be made available to individual mobile telephone users.

Not sure this will be around long. As far as I know, directly allocating a landline number to a mobile device breaks the number allocation rules. However, they have already got this far, so who knows what Ofcom actually permit these days?

Andrews & Arnold offer a similar service, although its shortcoming is that it uses the 3 network only, with no fall-back roaming on T-Mobile's 2G network:

http://aaisp.net.uk/telecoms-mobile.html

Soho 66 also offer a similar  service http://soho66.co.uk/87203/all/1/Mobile-VoIP.aspx  :)