When I went back to working from home I faced a problem that many home based businesses have to solve. I have a standard BT telephone line complete with my home number and a broadband service that uses the same line. I wanted to have a completely separate telephone number for my business so I could keep business calls away from my home number.

The obvious solution would be to have a second telephone line installed just for business use. This is what many people do but it has its drawbacks. You have to pay the line rental for a line that may not get a lot of use and the call charges are not very competitive. I had used the two line solution when I first started my business and I did not want to do it again so I looked for another way.

The solution I finally chose is the one I still use now. I have a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone that uses my Internet connection to make and receive calls. It works in a similar way to services like Skype, Google Hangouts, WhatsApp and many other proprietary solutions but with some big advantages over those systems. Read More…