How to Get a VoIP Phone Number – Complete Step-by-Step Guide 2025

Last Updated on January 2, 2025

More and more businesses are deciding that they need the flexibility, cost saving and professionalism of VoIP phone numbers regardless of the size of their business, and one question we’re often the answer to is How to Get a VoIP Phone Number.

As a specialist in providing VoIP phone numbers for thousands of clients, we’re regularly asked for advice on the best way to get a VoIP phone number, what to look out for and how much it costs.

We’ve seen a lot of queries raised to us regarding the recent announcement of the ISDN and PSTN network shut down in the UK, whereby BT is aiming to shut the old traditional copper wire network down by 2027 and move all telephone calls onto VoIP, meaning that if customers don’t obtain a VoIP number by then, there’s a chance they could lose their number or service entirely.

With that in mind, we’ve put together a step-by-step guide to talk you through the process and what to expect.

What is a VoIP Phone number?

As opposed to a physical landline number, which has an assigned area code, a VoIP phone number is assigned to a user rather than a location and its calls are made over the internet. 

VoIP is an acronym for Voice Over IP, which is internet phone connectivity rather than physical telephone systems that connect telephone calls through a copper-wired network known as the PSTN network. 

A VoIP number is simply a phone number assigned to a user rather than a location, and this number can be directed anywhere as long as it’s able to receive an internet connection or a phone connection.

Examples of Different VoIP numbers

We advise many of our customers on their requirements for a VoIP telephone number, and one of the important things to decide is what type of VoIP number you require for your business. 

In the UK, there are three types of VoIP numbers. 

Typically, these different types of numbers vary in cost as providers can charge by the minute, by location or by call type, but with Air Landline, we just charge a monthly fee of £9.99 + VAT.

• Local Number – A local number allows you to claim a phone number in a particular area if your business has a presence in that area but you’re located elsewhere. For example, if your company has customers in Manchester but you’re located in London, you can claim a 0161 local Manchester number and have it diverted to your mobile phone. 
• National Number – A national number, beginning with 0330 can be claimed that covers the whole of the UK and isn’t tied to or related to a particular area, so it is perfect for businesses that cover the whole of the UK or don’t have a customer base that is specifically tied to one location. These numbers are charged at the same rate as a local number, so they don’t cost any extra. 
• Toll-Free – These types of numbers are more common in the US, and we don’t provide them. These tend to be offered by larger companies with a more large-scale or complex customer service operation. It’s free to the customer but costs the business that provides the number.

Have you been wondering why everyone is switching to VoIP?

You’re probably here because you’ve been hearing all the hype about switching to VoIP rather than a standard telephone number, and there’s a good reason for that. 

First and foremost, the UK will be retiring and switching off its old copper wire network in the next few years, meaning that all telephone calls will travel via the Internet before the end of the decade. 

Secondary to that, there are many reasons why a VoIP number is easier, more cost-effective and more versatile than a standard telephone number provided by a phone network. 

6 reasons why you need a VoIP number

Here are some of the top reasons our customers tell us they take on a VoIP number. 

Separate personal and business mobile phone numbers

Using Air Landline means that you can separate your personal telephone number from your business number and vice versa. 

This is a really popular selling point with business owners who often struggle to switch off or separate work from personal life. 

With Air Landline, you can divert your number to any number you want, and you can also forward it to voicemail or call centre. 

If you get yourself an extra mobile just for work, this can be diverted to your new dedicated business number quickly and easily. 

Dedicated Virtual Business landline

With Air Landline, you’re providing your customers the same type of telephone number that is provided with a traditional landline company. 

However, it’s completely virtual, flexible, mobile, and can be used anywhere.

With a traditional landline business number, you’d normally need to be sat next to a physical phone or within the location where the number is provided, meaning that many times, customers may need to be calling out of the area which doesn’t provide the kind of professional experience our customers are looking for. 

Future Proof 

Due to the fact that the UK is turning off their PSTN network in the next few years, older landlines will cease to work as they once did.

By getting yourself a VoIP telephone number now, you’re ensuring that your business is ready for the change and already has a recognisedable and established contact number before this happens, allowing you to plan for the future. 

Many, if they haven’t organised this ahead of time, could lose the telephone numbers they’ve had for years and spend a lot of money advertising. 

By joining Air Landline and claiming your VoIP number today or porting over your existing number, you can take advantage of our free trial, ensuring you’re ready now. 

Cost Effective Calling 

Many business telephone providers charge a higher rate than they do to residential users and aren’t particularly flexible when it comes to pricing structures. 

To have a number forwarded to your mobile with a traditional provider, for example, you may be charged significantly extra, particularly if your provider charges you per call. 

By claiming a VoIP number with Air Landline, you’ll be charged a flat monthly fee of £9.99 + VAT with unlimited call forwarding and no extra or hidden charges. It’s traditionally much cheaper to operate on VoIP than with a traditional provider, which can reduce your monthly outgoings.

Flexibility and Mobility

Unlike traditional landline numbers tied to a specific location or device, a VoIP number can be used anywhere, meaning that having a VoIP number for your business puts you in a position where you can contact your customers worldwide. 

With the Air Landline service, because your VoIP number is forwarded to your mobile, you don’t even require an internet connection, as long as you’ve got a phone signal to receive a call, then your VoIP number can go wherever you go as long as you’ve got your phone. 

Many of our customers find this much better than being stuck next to a physical landline telephone to receive or make calls, and you can use a national or local number of your choosing, making the experience more professional. 

Advanced Features

With Air Landline, we only ever charge you a flat fee per month for your voip number and for you to receive unlimited calls to your number.

However, we also offer extra add-ons that can provide you with a highly professional experience as your business grows with you. 

For example, the App add-on is £7.99 a month (+VAT) per user, giving you UNLIMITED calls to UK landlines & mobiles from 1 mobile and 1 desktop. 

You can make calls from anywhere you have an internet connection, even abroad. There are no long-term contracts, and you can cancel the add-on anytime for free without any cancellation fees.

If you don’t want the App add-on but don’t want customers to see your mobile number when you call them, you can withhold your mobile number by dialling 141 before the customer’s number or hide your Caller ID in your mobile settings.

Alternatively, you can set up Business WhatsApp with your Air Landline number for free and WhatsApp call and WhatsApp message customers with your Air Landline number. 

*Note: this only works if the person you’re calling has WhatsApp.

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.

Further, you can also do call transcribing and recording with our service, which are all included in your monthly price.

This means that the possibilities for making your business phone number a super professional experience, setting you aside from the competition, are much higher with a VoIP number in comparison to traditional phone numbers. 

Scalability 

Crucially, VoIP number providers offer you a much more seamless and straightforward way to scale up as your business grows. 

If, for example, you’re a business that currently only has one employee, you’ll only need one phone number for customers to be able to reach you.

Still, as you expand, you may need that number to be forwarded to multiple people, so you don’t miss a call. 

You may need to take on a second number for your sales department, or you may need to claim multiple telephone numbers across different areas of the UK for your local presence. 

Air Landline’s VoIP numbers can help you with this scalability, and if you’d like to start now, you can sign up for our free 7-day trial, where you can see all these features and more. 

Better Call Quality 

In most circumstances, VoIP offers a much better user experience when taking calls over longer distances than traditional landlines, which can be vulnerable to interference and poor-quality calls due to network degradation. 

VoIP calls, in comparison, are much more reliable because they’re transmitted via the Internet rather than numerous exchanges and networks across the country.

Similarly, many providers now use technology to improve quality and reliability, which means crystal clear calling and reliable connections. 

Features that come with Air Landline’s Virtual business VoIP numbers

Our VoIP telephone packages come with many features that aren’t available with many traditional providers. 

We’ve spent a long time in the industry, and we’ve put together one of the best services on the market for our customers who’ve worked with us to provide suggestions and reviews. 

• Choose your own area code – With Air Landline, you can choose any local area code you want from anywhere in the UK, giving you the options of 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!

Where can I get a VoIP number?

There are a number of different providers from which VoIP numbers can be chosen. 

However, service levels vary, and what’s included in your monthly subscription can also vary greatly from one provider to another.

For a comparison of what Air Landline provide compared to competitors, you can see our comparison below.

	Air Landline™	Other providers
Instant automated set up:	✅	❌
Works without needing an App, internet, or 4G/5G:	✅	❌
Incoming calls diverted to:	Your Mobile Number.	An Internet-Based App.
Call quality:	High	Inconsistent, as it relies on internet/4G/5G
Cost of diversion to mobile number:	Free	3p-20p per minute
Diversion limit:	Unlimited	Limited in their fair usage policy
Uptime record:	100%	Varies, read their 1-2 star reviews on Trustpilot
Displays unbiased review platform:	Yes, Trustpilot (read how it’s unbiased)	Varies, always check Trustpilot for reviews
Customer service hours:	7am-10pm with 24/7 Network Ops.	Typically 9am-5pm
Contract length:	1 month	1-12 months
Cancellation notice period:	1 day. We stop charges immediately	30-90 days
Cancellation fee:	Free	Varies, read their 1-2 star reviews on Trustpilot
Cost to transfer-out to another provider:	£0 (FREE) leave us any time for free	£30-£90 to leave them
Cost to transfer-in your existing number:	£0 (FREE) we have no porting-in fees	Typically £30 per number ported-in
UK-based customer service:	Yes, our own experienced team	Typically call centre staff
Ease-of-use:	“Easy” – that’s the most used word in our reviews	Requires a level of tech-savviness
Call recording cost:	Free	Not possible/£15 a month
Diversion to multiple mobile numbers:	Free – sequentially, simultaneously & time-of-day routing	Not possible/3p-20p per minute
WhatsApp Business integration:	Free, just follow these steps	Not possible/£4 a month
Has the most useful free features:	✅	❌
Security protocols:	High. Our layered security protocols push industry standards to the extreme	Not clear on their websites
Guarantees:	30-day money-back guarantee	None

With Air Landline, the process is quick and easy.

Sign up for our free 7-day trial, and from there, we’ll take you through a few easy steps to select an area code you’d like, with a choice of hundreds.

From there, all you need to do is tell us where you want the calls to be diverted, provide your email address and then you’re ready to go! 

The issue with free voip numbers

There are, of course, free VoIP number providers. However, there can be significant drawbacks compared with paid professional services such as Air Landline. 

Firstly, there tends to be a restriction on the number of features you use or the cost of using them, which can be very high per call. 

Secondly,  they may not have the technology or support to provide high-quality call stability and clarity. 

Customer support is often much more scaled back compared to paid-for providers, and they may also refuse to allow you to move your number once it’s with them, or they may look to make it unnecessarily difficult to do so. 

Our customers and clients frequently cite ads and privacy concerns as a reason they either avoided or switched from free providers to us, with ads in calls or data farming taking place. 

The main reason our customers tell us they avoided or switched from a free service is the limited number of items they can have as well as the limited selection of area codes. 

With Air Landline, you have a wide selection of hundreds of potential area codes all across the UK.

How to get your VoIP phone number online – Start your 7-day FREE trial

Getting your Air Landline VoIP number online and ready to use is really easy and simple. We’ll talk you through the process here

Choose your area code

First, choose the area code you’d like your virtual number to have.

Here, you can select from hundreds of different UK area codes or simply select a national number area code.

Link your mobile number and email address

Secondly, provide the mobile phone number to which your business calls will be redirected and also enter in your email address so that we know where to send your new number to.

You’re now ready to start receiving calls

Once activated, you’ll receive an email with your new VoIP virtual number and instructions on how to update your password.

Once you’re in your control panel, you can set up voicemail, call recording, and other advanced call features.

Test your service

Try your number by calling from a different phone and see how quickly and easily your new number is forwarded straight to your mobile!

It’s an easy way to check if your virtual phone number setup is working as expected.

Choose additional add-ons

If you want to have a virtual switchboard or the ability to make unlimited outbound calls using your new virtual voip telephone number, select the add-ons and get started asap!

Why would someone want to use a VoIP number?

Ultimately, VoIP is cheaper, more versatile, and mobile, and it provides better call quality and offers many more features than standard landline services. 

By getting a virtual phone number for your business, you’ll enjoy a wide range of benefits, including the ability to manage calls from anywhere.

How to get a virtual phone number for WhatsApp Business

Before you request the WhatsApp verification code, you need to ensure your call route is set to ensure you can receive the verification code. 

Visit the Routing page of the Control Panel, then set the following:

Enable call recording: This is so you can listen back to the call, which will be useful for troubleshooting.

Set the Incoming Caller ID: Ensure the “Incoming Caller ID displayed” is set as “Show My Air Landline Number”

Remove Welcome Message: If you have added a welcome message, please remove it by tapping on “- Remove Welcome Message” above the welcome step.

Divert to one mobile number only: If you’re diverting to multiple mobile numbers, please remove the mobile numbers so only one mobile receives the verification call.

No Call Whisper: If you have added a Call Whisper, please remove it by selecting “No Whisper”

Untick “Require keypad press”: If you have ticked the “require keypad press..”, please untick it.

Once you’ve done the above, tap “Save Change”.

Download Business WhatsApp

Use your Air Landline number during setup.

During setup, you’ll be asked to confirm your WhatsApp Business number. Make sure you select “Use a different number”, and then enter your Air Landline number.

Don’t just use your personal mobile number during set-up as it’s already being used as your personal WhatsApp number. Make sure you enter your Air Landline number during setup.

Enter the verification code.

WhatsApp will state that it has sent you a verification code by SMS; however, since landline numbers can’t receive SMS, you may instead receive a call that reads out the SMS containing the code.

Answer the call immediately and listen out for the code, then enter it into your phone.

If you miss the call, visit the “Calls” page of your Air Landline Control Panel and listen back to the call recording to hear the verification code.

If you don’t receive a call, wait for the countdown timer to reach zero then tap the link that you didn’t receive the verification code, then tap “Call me”.

Answer the call IMMEDIATELY, and it will ask you to press a specific key on your mobile keypad to get the verification code. Press that key quickly, and it will give you the verification code.

VoIP vs Landline

Many of our customers ask us to provide a short breakdown of the benefits of VoIP vs. a traditional landline.

• Cost: VoIP is far cheaper, offering unlimited calls and international savings, whereas landlines charge per minute and require costly infrastructure.
• Flexibility: VoIP works anywhere with the internet on mobile, tablet, or PC. Landlines tie you to a fixed location.
• Features: VoIP includes call forwarding, voicemail-to-email, and virtual numbers – landlines lack these extras.
• Future-Ready: The UK’s PSTN shutdown in 2027 makes VoIP the essential upgrade.

Is VoIP better than a landline?

In short, our customers often find that, yes, VoIP is much better, more versatile and cheaper than using a traditional landline number. 

It’s a service that’s tailored to today’s fast-paced business needs.

How much does it cost to call a voip number?

This will depend on who your call provider is and which tariff you’re on, but because your VoIP number is a local or national extension, then it is billed at the local and national rates, which is usually included in most inclusive minutes with phone providers or is billed at a cheap local rate.

Can I use my existing phone number with VoIP?

Absolutely, there is an option to port your current number over to Air Landline to use via the VoIP network with us, providing extra features, better cost efficiency and a more professional experience.

FAQ

Here, we’ve put together a list of Frequently Asked Questions that we get from our customers.

Summary – How to Get a VoIP Phone Number

Getting a VoIP phone number with Air Landline couldn’t be simpler with our Free 7-day trial. 

After just a few steps, you can sign up and start using our VoIP number service the same day. 

Our pricing structure means you know exactly what you’re getting each and every month with lots of features to give your customers an incredible and professional service. 

Compared to other providers, we provide a quick, easy, affordable service that gives you best-in-class experiences with many incredible features.