Business Products Why?

[#1]

I have been in business for about 12 year working from home but now have business premises, call me naive but what is the point of business products?
I have been searching through most isps and it seems to me that the extra cost involved in a business account far out weighs any benefits of having one!
For instance I would get a lot better deal with a residential PN account as far as usage goes with the only benefit being more voip calls which I would get anyway spending another £5 with my telephone provider.
There seems to be a lot of emphasis on support but to be honest my residential account has been seamless and has I will be doing pretty much the same on my business account other than in another building should I be expecting to need the support?
I guess my question is are businesses tied to business products, is there any reason a business can't get a standard product?
Finally is there a way that I can find out what the phone number is off the postcode? The Unit I have moved into has been empty for years, there is a BT box installed which has no dial tone and searches for the previous tenants comes up with no numbers. 
Thanks for any comments.

[#2]

Hiya,
What sort of usage do you think you will be looking at on your new business site?  If it's going to be fairly low, do you think Teleworker PAYG would be a sensible option for you? It cost £13.61 plus VAT, with additional 2GB chunks of usage costing £1.50 plus VAT if you prepay in advance, or £1.890 plus VAT on a PAYG fashion.
Business customers gain both the ability to use our Business Support Team as well as receiving prioritised traffic on business applications.  But if you are using your connection for a Business, we would expect you to use one of our Business Products, which are due a refresh in the not to distant future.
I don't think there's anyway of telling what your phone number is from the post code as often there'll be more than one number attached to the same post code and I don't believe there's any tools that offer finding this sort of thing out.  You'd need to get an order placed, which would be a 'start of a stopped line' which BT would probably do free of charge for you.

[#3]

it used to be possible with UK-info  192.com to get a listing of a street one of my older installations can still do it, the more recent installations cant, as far as I know, not got it installed at this moment, try looking at 192.com and see if that helps at all

[#4]

Quote

The Unit I have moved into has been empty for years, there is a BT box installed which has no dial tone and searches for the previous tenants comes up with no numbers.

The chances are that the number that used to be at that property has been re-assigned.  After a certain length of time the numbers go back into the pool of available numbers for that exchange. It's quite likely that you'd get a different number to the one that was there previously. (The previous occupants could also have moved and taken their number with them.)
The only thing to do is place an order for a phone line with a service provider - you should be told the number there and then (or certainly on the confirmation letter a couple of days later).

[#5]

Numbers do not equal lines.
Lines are just bits of wire - there is no number until the service is provided on those wires.
As Paul says, if you order the line, the folks you order it from will give you the number fairly quickly.
Don't forget too, that once the number has been allocated, there is a period whilst it still won't show up in exchange checker searches and even in the systems used by telcos for ordering ADSL etc. (Just in case you wanted to look at estimated speed etc before ordering)

[#6]

The teleworker payg package is closest to my needs but for the same money I could get bbyw2 with miles more usage but less calls, like I was saying the emphasis seems to be on support which you have highlighted again. I have never had to contact PN with any faults other than to help me with my own ignorance so surely I can expect a similar service working half a mile from my house.
Question is can I have a residential package for my business is there any reason why not?
On the subject of the phone number can an independent phone provider arrange for a line to be set up?
If I check packages I can't input a number to test for availability and I'm not sure if I ask BT to set the line up whether I'll be stuck in contract with them.
BTW thanks for the 192 tip but like mentioned the unit must have been empty for that long its been reallocated.
Thanks

[#7]

Hey,
I think it comes down to a case of PlusNet 'preferring' that you take a business product if you are using your connection to run a business. I know financially this may not be ideal, but cost-wise it should not be that different, and businesses tend to be more demanding in terms of support, requiring invoices with their billing, etc.
If you are using your connection for business, and your ADSL line goes kaput, the business support team would be perfect.
matt

[#8]

For those of us that log in from home to our remote office and we have a residential BT line.
I'm quite happy with using a Business Broadband product, But, I can't see why Plusnet doesn't offer the Homephone product.
It probably wouldn't be any cheaper than my Superline product that I use, but it would mean one less product
http://www.superline.co.uk/unlimited.html
Viv Burrows

[#9]

We have a business phone product in design at the moment. Watch this space 

[#10]

ok, suddenly I am interested.
I'm relocating and was going to lose my plusnet broadband. If plusnet are considering doing a phone service for business then I would be interested in having my broadband, telephone and web hosting all with the one company. I'll be watching this space intently up until 1st October.

[#11]

Glad to hear it geewiz.
We'll keep you and the forums posted

[#12]

We are a charity and on a BT business line, and having just signed up for a PN Teleworker BB package - we would certainly be interested in an inclusive phone package too if it offered inclusive calls for out of hours or even inclusive day time - we are a very low volume user with only part time staff - so we would certainly not use a lot of calls.

[#13]

Certainly sounds doable Mal.
We're still working on the Business product refresh and as soon as I have details I can publish I'll let the Community know.

[#14]

Any word on the Business product updates.
( should I even hesitate to enquire about any plans for ASDL 2+ )
MArk

[#15]

Having found this thread I'm now totally confused. I am trying to get a friend set up on broadband. He is a Farmer and has a business telephone line which he also uses for personal calls. He only wants broadband at the moment for his children. In response to a ticket the CSC has told me that he needs to have a business broadband account. Is this fact or just PN's preference because they can charge more for Teleworker than they do for the basic residential package, which would more than satisfy his current need?
Put another way, do PN know (or care) whether or not a line is registered with another provider as a business telephone line and would they block a request to provide a residential broadband service?