New member here, please forgive me if this question gets asked all the time

I run a small business that provides various services - including voiceovers for companies and broadcasters, plus consultancy work

I know that I am going to have to move home(=office) at least once and very possibly twice in the next 12 months

I have to order a load of stationery/artwork/webwork/publicity now, including thousands of very expensive CD's for mailout

I hope you can understand why I want to get some non-geo numbers - to redo the whole thing twice in 18 months would be cripplingly expensive and annoying for the clients.

And yet I hate it when companies give 0870 numbers to me - and I would like to behave ethically to my customers (my clients are 99.999% companies rather than members of the public btw so I guess they are not that bothered about the bill..but it's the principle of the thing)

With the recent changes I think that now 0870 is the lesser of the evils?

Any other ideas for numbers I can get now, that I won't have to change?

On the technical side: I have an BT ISDN2e line here, with a Gesko 115 pbx..off that I have 2 landlines, a fax and my ISDN codec (for doing voiceovers and interviews down the line)..and I can get more msn's from BT in the future as my company expands...and I guess maybe we'd like to go Voipy in the future..maybe

Any future-proof strategies spring to mind?

Thankyou for any advice

ahhh..thanks Dave

so what do you reckon is the least-worst thing I can do to get a number now that won't have to change in the mid-term?

thanks...Voip is something I'm guessing we will get in to in the future..but we are a Mac based business that needs an ISDN line anyway so at the moment we do not have a Voip system

I'll look in to 03 numbers...have to say if I was given an 03 number by a company I'd be even more suspicious than of an 0870! purely because I have never heard of 03 and therefore would have that nagging doubt as to whether it is some new fangled 0898 rip off. At least with 0870 I know how much I am being ripped off by!

this is so annoying..I just wish the damn telcos could port an 0208 number around - further than three hundred yards

yesbut wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2008 at 4:20pm:


Yes, shows just how well (NOT!) Ofcom managed to promote the new UK-wide 03 numbers...

This page has a nice introduction to 03 numbers, and that company also provide them at a relatively cheap price (however, I've never used them before so I'm not promoting them in any way ).

oh and with an 03 number I also have to pay call charges if it gets routed to a landline

this is sadly a no-brainer for companies trying to keep costs down..no wonder 0870 is so popular (with companies that is)

yesbut wrote on Mar 24^th, 2008 at 1:35pm:

The point here is that 03 is a neutral ground for the caller. Any additional cost is met by the receiver.

0870 users are all out to rip off the customer because they could have chosen a 0845 number which incur no incoming calls and in some cases allow revenue share. They deliberately went for the higher call rate.


Businesses will now incur extra charges above that of 01/02/03 numbers when calling 0845/0870 numbers. This could be put against the charges for a 03 number. So all this 0845/0870 defeats the point of today's telephone packages.


There's one final point and that's the fact that in a consumer driven market, competition is most effective at driving down prices when the consumer pays. For example, imagine if someone else would pay your supermarket bill. It wouldn't matter to you which goods you picked and the supermarket wouldn't need to offer deals or reduce the price of goods to make a sale. This is the case with 0845/0870. With 03, more demand will bring more providers into the market and drive down these charges.

yesbut can obviously get a geographic 01/02 voip number with www.sipgate.co.uk and then keep moving that to wherever he/she is now working.

I fail to see why anyone in this line of work would still be using ISDN today as it is very expensive slow and outdated.  I am sure the equipment cost of switching to a broadband and voip solution (using www.sipgate.co.uk numbers) could be saved in just the first few months in IDSN line rental and phone charges.

As to yesbut's attitude on 03 numbers the fact is you are receiving a service by having NGNs re-directed wherever you want.  Why do you expect your customers rather than you to pay for the extra convenience inherent in redirecting your numbers wherever you want whenever you want?  It seems only because some of them are ignorant they are being ripped off.

I suspect you are in fact just yet another plant from an 0870 number vendor trying to justify your continued selling of these numbers.  Someone really opposed to 0870 numbers would never consider using them for their own phone number.

yesbut wrote on Mar 29^th, 2008 at 12:03pm:


An ISDN line is 64k or 128 if bonded to another one (which doubles the costs) but a broadband line is usually between 1000k and 7000k downstream (dependent on location) but around 448k upstream usually regardless of location.  Added to that ISDN lines have specific additional rental costs which could be deployed towards a decent broadband line.  It sounds to me like a classic case of someone who has been doing this for years not keeping up with technolgical change and this costing them more money than investing in new equipment that would work with broadband.  ISDN is yesterday's technology and is very over priced as well.
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OK fair enough but I think it is your being wedded to ISDN and the old equipment that you use in conjunction with it that is really the issue here.

And no all broadband should not be judged by downmarket shysters like Talktalk who try to squeeze 15 customers in to a pint pot intended for one customer.  If you take your broadband from a decent provide like www.adsl24.co.uk, www.newnet.co.uk, www.idnet.co.uk or www.zen.co.uk then it is far faster, cheaper and more reliable than ISDN.