[DaggaDagga]

I have tried both Vonage and Sipgate. I actually got rid of the phone line and we got a Vonage router. Sometimes we couldn't get a line out at all, other times it was very poor quality. You could communicate, but it wasn't very natural to speak.

I think the problem was mainly upstream - someone I rang said I sounded like a dalek, while they sounded fine to me, if a bit distant. I had 10Mb broadband at the time.

Opinions on VoIP seem to be polarised into either "brilliant" or "awful". I suspect it's a lot to do with the latency on a particular broadband line or something similar. Nobody would have said our Vonage was acceptable, in fact the other half demanded a "proper" phone after complaints from her parents. I carefully twiddled every setting thoroughly on both services I tried.

I'm happy to pay a bit more for clarity, as a call may be from someone about to spend money.

So it sounds like a second line is the only option then. Virgin don't even offer it as an option on their upgrade wizard - I guess it's less demanded these days now that nobody uses dial-up internet.

Anyone know about the pricing for bundling and what cabling I'll already have in place (as above)?

Thanks to all so far - I haven't been on this forum for years. Good to see it's still so busy, even in sleepy old Fixed Phone corner!