Cheapest business phone line ?

Edwards Finance > Phones

Q. I work from home as a computer programmer, and have a second phone line - in my limited company's name - which is used for work phone calls and ADSL broadband (the broadband is also in the company name). I need to have the second line in the company name in order for the cost to be deductable to the company. The problem is that I --make-- very few phone calls, so the cost of the phone line is basically the cost of the rental, and I'd like to reduce that if possible. Currently I'm with BT. I'm paying ?1.15+VAT line rental every 3 months just to make and receive a few phone calls, and to have a line which the broadband can use. Is there any provider who offers a cheaper line rental? Most of the phone companies seem to compete on the cost of calls (irrelevant to me), not the cost of line rental, and most of the deals are for non-business use anyhow. Another option may be to cancel the phone service and still use the line for ADSL - is that possible? If that's an option then maybe I could maybe use VoIP for business phone calls, though I haven't looked at the cost compared with ordinary line rental. Any suggestions as to other options?

A. ADSL requires a BT line, AIUI. I'm on NTL cable broadband, though. You can get a line from www.gradwell.co.uk for a couple of quid a month plus a bit of hardware - or you can use something like Asterisk as an opensource PABX and softphones. Call quality's perfectly servicable. I've just received a call that went in to a Gradwell number, down an NTL line at the office, to Asterisk, then - because there's nobody there today - was diverted back out via the NTL line to Gradwell to the phone network to my mobile. Couldn't tell it wasn't straight to the mobile number. For the last 16.5 years we have simply "apportioned" the personal BT bill to the Company and us.

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