Retaining a landline number for contact

There are clearly advantages to be had for many people by changing from broadband and telephone supplied by landline to broadband and telephone supplied through the mobile networks.

However, it may be seen as a possible deal-breaker where someone wishes to retain their landline number because it is still used for contact.

Please excuse my lack of awareness about the technology, but is it possible for someone in that situation to port their landline number to a VOIP provider and then get VOIP access through their new broadband connection via a mobile network thus retaining their existing contact number? If that is possible, does it make sense economically?

Edited by GonePostal (Tue 27-Aug-19 11:34:54)

VoIP should work over Internet infrastructure that can manage around 0.1 Mbps symmetric speeds

So question is more about what hardware does the person have or is planning to use on the mobile network? e.g. the 4G/5G Home Broadband solutions support Ethernet connected devices so the usual voice ATA units should be able to plug in.

Andrew, thanks.

Question was just generic technical nosiness rather than of any direct personal interest as we have no mobile signal of any description at home.

Hopefully your answer will help others who are facing that sort of situation.

Over the years we have changed ISP's a few times and I realised that porting a phone number each time was going to have problems at some point.

Instead of retaining our long-running number, which only seems to get spoof calls anyway, I set up a third party VOIP number and bought the ATA to connect it to my home broadband. I've actually unplugged the 'real' telephone as a 'new' number provided on the last ISP change was getting junk calls I didn't want. The VOIP line to date has not had one spoof call.

Additionally, I've an app on my mobile that will let me answer and make calls on the VOIP line. My family tend to use, and call, mobiles rather than the landline. Handy if I am out as I can still take the occasional call from my doctor or whoever.

Having said all that, it should be possible to port an existing number to a VOIP provider (fixed or mobile) and do something similar. The advantage being that if you do change ISP again you don't have to change phone number any more. Same as not using an ISP email address and either getting your own domain name or using a free online email service.

Sticking to one ISP these days isn't a matter of loyalty, after a 'new customer' offer expires you often get the price bumped up and little incentive to stay. Moving your number to a mobile broadband provider serves to tie you in to their service for the future.

There are some free VOIP services out there but I pay my provider a nominal £1.20 a month.

I am curious about porting a number to VOIP based on what you have said. Landline numbers are geographical, my parents moved from one city to another and couldn't take the phone number with them since the area code would be wrong for the new location. Does this not apply if porting to a VOIP from an existing landline number? Or could you only do it if you were still within the same area code the same as with a normal landline?

I have worked on a few radio stations in recent years and have VOIP numbers in several dialling code areas

If you ask you should be able to port an existing number to VOIP but then be able to connect (wonders of the Internet) anywhere in the world, not just the UK. This is how a lot of these spam calls from overseas are working, they get a UK based number on VOIP and use it to call from Inda etc.

Hi

Sipgate will set up a free geographical number with any dialling code you like and you will then receive incoming calls (a great way to dip your toes into VoIP and try it out), and be able to make outgoing calls if adding some credit. I did this on moving from one end of the UK to the other many years ago so friends/family could still ring me and pay a local call rate. Times moved on since and call packages tend to now make no distinction between local and national and most calls are mobile to mobile for me now, but I still have the numbers.

I have to echo another poster, I've never received a cold call to any VoIP number in decades of having these numbers. I can't say the same for my landline numbers even being ex-directory.

Regards

Phil

Cool I will have a look at it, sounds perfect as I would never need it for outgoing calls anyway and don't really need it at all so being free is perfect. I have a gigaset home phone which can do voip so I can just set it up on that when I ditch the landline and fibre to go 5g, probably around April once I get a 5g phone to see what kinda speeds I can get here.

Edited by Ewok (Wed 28-Aug-19 17:59:15)

In reply to a post by Ewok:

I am curious about porting a number to VOIP based on what you have said. Landline numbers are geographical, my parents moved from one city to another and couldn't take the phone number with them since the area code would be wrong for the new location. Does this not apply if porting to a VOIP from an existing landline number? Or could you only do it if you were still within the same area code the same as with a normal landline?

Normally SIP services expect the area code to be dialled. Some equipment lets you configure a rule to prefix the area code if a local number is dialled.