Possible OT Mobile Phone Number Question.

[Mick Cant]

Hi all, If this is OT for the uk.d-i-y group could anyone please tell me the name of a correct group.

I have a pay as you go mobile phone account with Virgin, and have been pleased with the service and have had no problems during around 5 years.

I have taken over the running of a group that meets weekly, and really need to have a phone contact number that is apart from my home landline and my mobile phone number. I was going to buy a second mobile phone to use for a new virgin pay as you go account, but before I do wondered if I could just get another virgin account sim card, and set up the account,with a voice box then just insert the new sim card in my phone every few days to check for any messages? Would this work? Thanks for any thoughts. Mick.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Mick Cant explained :

Yes, but you may need to make a minimum number of calls within a set period to keep the number active.

[Peter Andrews]

Set up a voip number (choose your own number) with Sipgate set to voicemail and it will email you the message within a few seconds. Free of charge as long as you have an incoming call every month (I think). I've got one for my residents association - don't get calls at inconvenient times and can compose a suitable response before returning the call - worth it's weight in gold.

Peter

[Graham.]

It sounds like the callers will only be leaving voicemail messages, and there is no urgency in picking them up. Is that right? If so, here is my solution, it's totally free.

Go to

don't worry that it's VoIP, you are only going to use it for voicemail. Create yourself an account on the registration tab.

Choose an appropriate STD area code, you are going to get a free geographic telephone number. Confirm you want the geo number my selecting the 2nd radio button. Highlight the number and complete the registration form.

Log into your account click the voicemail tab and choose voicemail settings. Fill in a 4 digit PIN and save.

Click "configure call forwarding" and create a rule to immediately forward to voicemail.

Now dial 020 7043 7777 when prompted dial the last 7 digits of your new phone number and when you here "password" dial the 4 digit PIN you created.

0 then 1 will allow you to record an outgoing message ("unavailable" message) please do this as the default message sounds horrable.

So there you go, callers call the local number, hear the OGM and leave a message.

Calling the London 020 number allows you to listen to the messages and manage the mailbox. You can listen to the messages directly from the website, and you can have new messages emailed to you.

[Adrian C]

Use a personal numbering service like flextel or YAC. Mostly free (for you) to run, but callers pay a premium for the call. You can direct the call to your other phones, setup a voice mailbox or direct incoming audio to email - attached as a wav file.

[Mick Cant]

Thank you very much Graham, All set up and working, took me two goes to get the unavailable message right, and set it to email the voice messages to me, so should be easy to use. Thanks again, Mick.

[Graham.]

Ah, but Peter should take the credit, he beat me with the same answer by a whole three minutes. (Don't you hate it when that happens?) ;-)

[Peter Andrews]

... yes, I was feeling very offended that you stole my thanks:-)

Peter