Alternate Phone Number: What It Is & How to Get One FREE

Last Updated on January 2, 2025

What Does an Alternate Phone Number Mean?

An alternate phone number is a secondary contact number that provides flexibility and convenience for individuals and businesses. 

Unlike your primary number, an alternate phone number can serve specific purposes, such as separating work from personal life or providing a professional touch to business communications. 

It’s especially useful for those who need additional privacy or want to manage calls more effectively.

For example, businesses often use alternate numbers to maintain a professional appearance, streamline customer communication, or expand their reach without being tied to a physical location. 

For individuals in 2025, having an alternate phone number allows for better organisation, especially when dealing with temporary projects or sensitive transactions.

Additionally, alternate phone numbers can be useful when users want to maintain their privacy and avoid receiving unwanted calls or messages on their primary number.

Mostly, our customers decide to take an alternative phone number for work purposes if they decide to become self-employed or run their own business. 

It may be the case that early on in their self-employment, just a mobile or personal one works quite well for them. However, as businesses grow, so do the number of calls they receive.

This, in turn, harms their personal and work-life balance, can lead to disorganisation and doesn’t always look entirely professional when looking to advertise.

How Does an Alternative Number Work?

An alternative phone number works by routing calls through digital or virtual systems instead of relying on traditional telecom infrastructure.

When choosing a VoIP or Voice Over IP number with Air Landline, this can be done by activating your FREE 7-day trial.

From there, you have the ability to choose any local area code you want, and we’ll generate your own virtual landline number that can be used to forward calls to any mobile phone number.

These alternate VoIP numbers can forward calls to your mobile or landline, be used with welcome messages, option menus, call recording, and even WhatsApp Business whilst operating through VoIP, offering mobility and scalability.

Air Landline’s virtual number service ensures high call quality by redirecting incoming calls to your chosen device without requiring a dedicated app or internet connection. 

This makes managing your calls seamless and efficient. Furthermore, alternative phone numbers can come with advanced call features such as call history, a welcome message, hold music, and more.

VoIP technology forms the backbone of most alternate phone numbers. By converting voice into data packets and transmitting them over the internet, VoIP enables clearer, faster, and more cost-effective communication compared to traditional systems.

Different Examples of Alternate Numbers

There are several types of alternate phone numbers that we see our customers using through our VoIP network:

Companies use business numbers to project a professional image and keep personal and professional communications separate. 

This helps business owners stay organised, and the extra features that VoIP numbers offer, such as call history, voicemail, and welcome messages, make it even better.

Virtual Numbers: Ideal for businesses, allowing them to operate flexibly across multiple regions, virtual numbers are cheap, effective, high quality and offer many features that traditional numbers don’t.

Temporary Numbers: These are commonly used for one-off transactions or events, such as selling items online or short-term marketing campaigns, and these are often also VoIP numbers.

Air Landline’s services include local and national virtual numbers, giving businesses a choice that fits their specific needs.

These options ensure businesses can communicate effectively without incurring unnecessary costs.

These numbers empower users to stay connected with a high-quality service by leveraging features like call forwarding and call recording.

In the new digital era, alternate phone numbers offer significant benefits:

Privacy Protection: Alternate numbers shield personal information, reducing the risk of spam or fraud.

Enhanced Productivity: Separate numbers streamline work-life balance and simplify call management.

Professionalism: A dedicated business number enhances your credibility and fosters trust with clients.

Cost Efficiency: Virtual numbers often have lower costs than traditional landlines and eliminate the need for expensive hardware.

Flexibility: Operate across multiple devices and locations without being tethered to a single physical line.

Alternate numbers also help businesses scale their operations. For example, a growing company can adopt multiple virtual numbers for different departments or regions, ensuring tailored communication with clients while maintaining a cohesive brand identity.

Steps on How to Get an Alternate Phone Number

Step 1: Choose a reliable provider

Select a reliable provider like Air Landline. Consider features, pricing, and customer support when making your decision. Look for providers that offer transparent pricing and no hidden fees.

Evaluate whether the provider offers additional features like call history, call recording, etc.

Air Landline also provides a 30-day money-back guarantee, no contract and UK-based customer service.

Step 2: Pick Your Area Code

With Air Landline, you can choose a local or national area code that suits your business needs.

Whether it’s a Manchester-based number or a UK-wide national line, Air Landline offers plenty of options.

The ability to select your area code adds a layer of customisation that can enhance your business presence. Having a localised number can help businesses build trust with local clients while expanding their reach.

Similarly, for businesses that have multiple locations, we find that having multiple alternative numbers across the areas where they have a presence really helps with connecting to customers through a local phone number.

Step 3: Enter Your Mobile Number and Email Address

Simply enter the mobile number you’d like to divert your business calls to and enter your email address.

Step 4: You’re Ready To Get Started!

Once you’ve completed the above two steps, you’ll be emailed your new alternative telephone number, and that’s it!

You’re ready to start receiving calls!

Why You Should Use an Alternate Number

Reason 1: Privacy

Keep your personal number private and avoid sharing it with clients or customers.

This reduces the risk of unwanted calls and protects your personal life. For businesses, alternate numbers safeguard sensitive communication channels and ensure client data security.

Reason 2: Professionalism

A dedicated business number enhances your brand’s image and credibility.

Clients are more likely to trust businesses that maintain professional communication channels.

With an alternate number, even small businesses can appear larger and more established.

Reason 3: Flexibility

Route calls to any device, ensuring you’re always accessible, regardless of your location.

This is particularly beneficial for remote workers and businesses with multiple locations.

By using Air Landline, users can take calls on their preferred devices without worrying about missed opportunities.

Reason 4: Scalability

As your business grows, you can add more numbers or expand to different regions without significant costs.

Air Landline’s virtual numbers make scaling seamless and efficient. Businesses can easily assign new numbers to departments or campaigns to maintain organised communication.

Reason 5: Advanced Features

Virtual numbers come with lots of extra features that you can’t get with traditional phone numbers, mobiles or landlines.

With Air Landline, you get all of these incredible features:

• Choose your own area code – With Air Landline, you can choose any local area code you want from anywhere in the UK, giving you hundreds of different area codes. All you need to do is select which one you want, and we’ll generate a number quickly and easily. 
• Link your number – Simply tell us which number(s) you want your new VoIP telephone number diverted to, and we’ll set up call forwarding almost instantly. Not only that, you can quickly and easily change this in your user panel, set up a welcome message, hold music and even call recording if you need it. 
• Advertise yourself – With your new professional business number, you can place this all over your company literature, advertising, and anywhere you need people to see it. You can, for example, link it to Google Ads with a ‘click to call’ feature that customers can dial from mobile, landline, or laptop or over the internet. You can make this your main number that all your customers know. 
• Get noticed – It’s all about how you come across, and with a professional, mobile, and flexible business number, you no longer need to advertise your mobile number, which can often make you look unprofessional or too small to do business with. Air Landline allows you to choose, utilise and advertise a professional telephone number. 
• Welcome message – You can set a personalised welcome message for your customers to hear as soon as they reach your number. If you’d prefer the personal touch, then you’re able to record your own voice, which will play automatically. If you’d rather, you can use our AI voice generator to send your message directly to your customers.
• Know who’s calling from where – By getting a virtual phone number with Air Landline, you can see who’s calling you and which number they’ve called before you even pick up the phone, meaning you can be more prepared. If you’re off for the day or the weekend, you can see it’s a business call rather than a personal call and simply divert to voicemail or call back when you’re in a better position to talk. 
• Hold music – You can select hold music from our library so that if you’re not able to get to your customers straight away, they get a professional experience rather than simply hearing the phone ring and ring until the call ends. 
• Log your calls – You can select call recording so that you never miss anything in your customer interactions, with the ability to go back and listen to calls that might be important or have details you need to go back to and log. 
• Missed call notifications – If you miss a call, then you’ll get an instant email update from us telling you who called and when so that you can return the call as quickly as possible.
• Recorded Voicemail – You can record your own voicemail message so that if you do miss a call and your customers hit the voicemail, you can give it a personal touch, and they’ll know that you’ll get right back to them as soon as you can. 
• Log your voicemails – You’ll get an instant email notification if you receive a voicemail with the recording attached so that you can file these in your emails, or you can simply go back at your convenience and see what you’ve missed. 
• WhatsApp Business integration – If you’d like the ability to WhatsApp your customers with your Air Landline number, that’s not a problem. We can get that set up so that you’re able to interact over WhatsApp Business with your professional business number, which gives far superior and professional service compared to traditional methods. 
• Recorded call history – Go back through your call history via the user panel anytime you need so that if, for whatever reason, you need to go back and see who’s called you or vice versa, you can get this information whenever you need. 
• And more!

Benefits of an Alternate Business Number

• Cost-Effective: An affordable monthly plan with  Air Landline, just £9.99 + VAT after your 7-day free trial, with no hidden charges.
• Scalability: Easily add more numbers as your business grows. Air Landline’s control panel and user area are incredibly easy to use and navigate.
• Advanced Features: Call forwarding, WhatsApp for business, and much more.
• Better Call Management: Separate personal and professional communications effortlessly. Add team numbers to have business calls answered by other work phones.
• Wider UK Reach: Operate in multiple regions without physical offices.
• Enhanced Team Collaboration and Resources: Use shared numbers for seamless teamwork.
• Data Insights: Use call history to improve decision-making and optimise workflows. This could even be integrated with a CRM.

Why Choose Air Landline as Your Alternate Virtual Number Provider

• FREE 7-Day Trial: Test the service with no commitment.
• Transparent Pricing: Flat £9.99/month (+VAT) with unlimited call forwarding.
• No App Required: Calls are routed directly to your mobile or landline via the internet or the cloud.
• Advanced Features: Includes call recording, voicemail, and WhatsApp Business integration for a second number you use for different purposes.
• UK-Wide Options: Choose from hundreds of area codes to suit your needs.
• Reliable Customer Support: Get assistance whenever you need it.
• Flexible Add-Ons: Enhance functionality with optional features like virtual switchboards and desktop apps for a secondary phone number businesses or individuals can use.
• 30-day money-back guarantee: If you’re not satisfied after 30 days, we’ll give you your money back
• No contract: Air Landline doesn’t tie you into a contract, just a 30-day rolling service that can be cancelled at any time.
• Enhanced security: Our layered security protocols push industry standards to the extreme
• WhatsApp Business Integration: Air Landline allows you to use your alternative number to contact customers via WhatsApp for business.

What to Look Out for When Choosing a Provider

• Hidden Costs: Ensure transparent pricing without unexpected fees as some providers can entice you in with a trial but then, for example, charge up to 20p per minute for forwarded calls. Air Landline’s pricing is transparent and clear.
• Call Quality: Look for providers like Air Landline that have excellent call reliability. Because we offer VoIP over broadband, we ensure great call quality and reliability.
• Flexibility: Choose a provider offering scalable options and advanced features. Air Landline offers one of the most comprehensive feature packages on the market, as detailed above, and you can add as many numbers as you like. 
• Customer Support: Reliable support is crucial for addressing issues promptly, At Air Landline our operational hours are 7 am-10 pm with 24/7 Network Ops.
• Feature Set: Ensure the provider offers tools like call recording, voicemail, and texting options. Air Landline has one of the widest array of features included with your subscription, which also includes outbound calls, call forwarding and WhatsApp integration, where you can also send texts to your contacts.
• Extras: Ensure that if you do need advanced features on top of your inclusive features. For example, with Air Landline, We also have a Switchboard add-on, which, for £4.99 + VAT, allows you to give up to 10 options. You can route each option to a different number(s) or the same number.  You can also set it so that you hear a whisper about which option the caller has chosen before you answer the call. There is no long-term contract, so you can cancel anytime for free.

FAQ

Summary – Alternate Phone Number

An alternate phone number or a second phone number that you can use in addition to your primary one is an essential tool for privacy, professionalism, system integrations and flexibility.

With Air Landline, you can enjoy advanced features, transparent pricing, and a seamless setup process – all starting with a free 7-day trial.

Whether you’re a small business owner or need a secondary number for personal contact use, Air Landline is the perfect way and a great solution to meet your communication needs.

By choosing Air Landline, you’re investing in a service designed to enhance your communication, simplify call management, and support your business growth – all at an affordable price. Sign up today and see the difference.