Telephone - 2 lines

[#1]

We are currently with another provider but looking at moving and noticed you also do business lines.
Our current setup is 1 telephone number with 2 lines and a second number with 1 line which the internet is tied to.
Is this setup possible through plusnet? I've sent an enquiry off and haven't recieved a reply yet but I'm a personal customer and I know the response time is pretty good on here.

[#2]

The official answer at present is that Plusnet do not provide a phone line on its own (without broadband) http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,122020.0.html

[#3]

But can you have 2 lines on the same telephone number with Plusnet as we currently do with BT? We need two active lines on the same telephone number as there are 4 or 5 people here who regulary use the phone and if someone phones while we are on the phone then someone else can still answer and talk to them.
We don't mind attaching the Fibre broadband to this number and then subscribing to the cheapest broadband service plusnet provide on the second telephone number if we really have to as it will still be cheaper than what we pay BT.

[#4]

VoIP may be an alternative solution.

[#5]

We did consider VoIP but we have serveral clients using it and we constantly have issues with bad lines when speaking to them and we don't like the idea that when our internet goes down we will lose our phones. In 20 years of being in our office our phones have gone down for probably 1 hour in total whereas we have been without internet at least a couple of hours each month. We could not afford to lose our phones.
I think we will look into just switching our internet and the phone line assosiated to it over to Plusnet for the moment as it will give us a big saving over what we pay BT now and then hopefully in the next few years plusnet might start offering multilines.

[#6]

The core voice backbone of BT is now 100% IP transmission so it is in effect VOIP anyway. I also use VOIP equipment for my trading floor clients and they are very fussy about quality. When there are voice problems with VOIP it tends to be with the servers of the VOIP supplier, the quality of the internet link and also the receiver equipment in your offices, As with most things you tend to get what you pay for, though BT will tend to overcharge if you let them get away with it.  PlusNet phone service is purely white-badged BT, but in some situations their price is better and generally their customer service is better.
The most appropriate solution for your company depends on the circumstances. If you do extensive overseas calls you will save a lot of money with VOIP services compared with BT, in these cases look at pre-selected routing as well - where you add a short code in-front of the number you want. Many of these services offer low or no call set up charges.
In any case I'd have a minimum of one standard BT line (or PlusNet) plus some form of internet calling with a broadband service on a second line. This gives you more resilience if one line fails. In any case have some type of call plan with BT/PlusNet on the main line.
If you are running a high volumes of calls such as a call centre you can make some massive savings by having dedicated trunk lines. I recently set something up for a client where the dedicated optical fibre was installed free of charge, there was no monthly rental and call charges were a fraction of the BT prices, however in that case there were 64 lines to the client.

[#7]

Afternoon all
Thanks for the feedback on multi line. From previous forum posts and conversations with customers, I know that this is something which people are interested in ordering from us though Oldjim is correct at the moment - this is unfortunately not something we offer just yet.
I've had a chat with one of our business propositions team to find out a bit more about if and when this is something we will be offering. One of the key dependencies of multi line is delivering some improvements to our billing system which we're planning for at present, though I couldn't commit to a date for this. Then obviously we would need to do a fair amount of extra work to deliver a multi line solution.
However, if there's anything in particular that people would want to see out of such a product, do let me know and I'll be sure to pass your feedback on.
Thanks
Rob

[#8]

We aren't a call centre (just a smallish office) so haven't got huge amounts of calls but there is nearly always at least one person (Theres between 5 and 10 of us) on the phone so having the second line available is a necessity.
I will have a look at some VoIP solutions - It was years ago we first looked at it so maybe a fresh look wouldn't hurt.
I've been in contact with a lady from plusnet today via email who has now responded to the initial enquiry and it looks like we will be moving our second telephone number along with the fibre broadband to plusnet depending on the answer to the question below. This alone saves us around £200 a year compared to BT and is double the speed (79mb estimated compared to our current 40mb - we are currently on an up to 40mb plan which is the reason for it not being higher).
It's a shame you don't offer the multilines as if each line we needed was priced the same as your current single lines (ie 2 x the cost for 2 lines) then we would save an additional £350 a year.
One additional query which will determine us moving to you:
BT currently have in place a system whereby after 14 days of issuing a broadband bill they will send a 'reminder' down the line which displays a message in your internet browser which you have to accept otherwise your internet access is limited to accessing the BT website and searching google but not being able to click on links. Now the problem is our mac computers have a problem displaying their reminder (They do not appear) and instead our internet appeared to just go down yesterday for 2 hours. A call to BT finally allowed us to carry on as they managed to accept the message their end. This is the first we knew about this system! No email warnings just limited internet access at about 10.30am. If our bill was overdue then I wouldn't have a problem with them but the fact they do this as a reminder is an absolute joke and is the sole reason for us leaving after over 20 years service.
So the question is….do you currently have the same system in place?

[#9]

Why would you have an unpaid bill if paying by Direct Debit?

[#10]

Knew someone would ask that…..
We worked out they overcharged us by over £1,000 on a bill but we were told we had to let them take the money by the direct debit that was setup or we would be disconnected for non payment of a bill and only after then we could claim it back for a refund……As you can probably guess, getting a refund from BT takes alot longer than them taking the money from you.
Now I'm happy to signup to plusnet by direct debit but its purely out of principle we don't have one with BT for our internet. We've been let down by them on more than one occasion and been left owed thousands.

[#11]

You do realise Plusnet levy an extra charge if you don't pay by DD?
Why didn't you get the money back using the DD guarantee?

[#12]

Yes and as I said in my previous post I am happy to pay by direct debit with plusnet.
The direct debit guarantee didn't apply as we were told to accept the charge or face disconnection. As we accepted the charge the direct debit guarantee doesn't apply.

[#13]

Did you check with the bank if that was accurate?

[#14]

Hello again everyone
Just to clarify, when I referred to "multi line" I meant multiple single phone lines under one bill. The multi line that JamesS was talking about is another product that we'd need to purchase from our supplier. If people are interested in this - 2 or more phone lines with the same number - let me know and I'll pass on your feedback 

[#15]

At my place of work, also with Plusnet on my recommendation, we have our main line through a mini PBX. Because that cannot be used as a broadband line, we have another line for our broadband which also serves our fax machine and is occasionally used for outgoing calls. Though we have both lines with Plusnet we have to pay considerably more for our PBX line than our broadband line. The reason given by PN is that they are primarily broadband providers not telephone line providers. Annual line rental payments are also not allowed to business customers, why?
It does seem crazy that broadband customers, private and business, are being given incentives to take the phone service from PN. Can anyone explain why our charity must pay over the odds, of necessity of circumstances, for our other phone line?
Calligrapher