BT are the large telecoms company which used to be called British Telecom. They are often referred to as the incumbent supplier since they dominate the landline market.
Birchills Telecom are the friendly business phone company who operate a hosted VoIP service that is at an amazing price point.
The following table shows shows a the comparison between the BT Enhanced VoIP service and the Birchills Telecom Service. The comparison was carried out using public sources of information in January 2011.
|
Feature
|
BT
|
Birchills Telecom
|
|
|
|
|
|
Connection Charge
|
£80.00
|
£20.00
|
|
Hosted Voip
|
£7.50
|
£8.50
|
|
Unlimited calls
|
£20*
|
£22.00
|
|
1 hunt group
|
Free
|
Free
|
|
Additional hunt group
|
£5.00
|
Free
|
|
Additional Numbers
|
£2.99
|
£2.00
|
|
Phone
|
£90
Only BT Falcon phone allowed
|
From £47.50 |
|
Additional MADN
|
£5
|
All numbers can be MADN but with far more features
|
|
Managed install
|
£100
|
Free
|
BT disclaimer
* includes calls to 01, 02, 03, g21, 0845, 0870, fm1 - fm13, includes all IDD destinations except exclusions outlined in PLE. Fair Use Policy applies - Customers are entitled to 5000 minutes in any combination of inland and IDD calls and 300 f2m minutes. If a customer breaches either of these rules (or both at the same time) they will be charged for additional calls at OP rates. NB: if they breach 300 f2m but have only used 1000 inland and IDD minutes in total we would charge for the f2m but the inland/IDD would still come out of the Unlimited bundle until 5000 was reached. Likewise, if they breach 5000 inland and IDD minutes but have not yet reached 300 f2m we would charge for additional inland and IDD calls that month but the f2m would still come out of the bundle until 300 was reached.
What is a MADN?
A Multiple Appearance Directory Number (MADN) provides you with one telephone number which, when called, is directed to multiple lines (which we call additional number).
You can use a MADN to set up a sales desk, where calls to the number are directed to a selection of available lines simultaneously until one of them answers.
If a call to a MADN goes unanswered, it is forwarded to the MADN’s mailbox.
You can maintain a MADN by using BT Hosted VoIP Service Webcare.
Call Features
BT does not support 1 account across multiple locations. Calls between locations are chargeable.
BT does not seem to do time based services ie out of hours.
Note
The headline £5.00 a month figure refers to 2nd year line rental ie line rental drops from £7.50 to £5.00 year 2