Are Virtual Phone Numbers Reliable for Business Use?

It's a fair question. If you're putting a phone number on your website, business cards, and Google listing, you need to know it will work every time a customer calls. The short answer is yes — virtual phone numbers are reliable for business use, and in many cases more reliable than the traditional copper landlines they're replacing.

But "reliable" means different things to different people. Let's break it down: call quality, uptime, what happens when things go wrong, and how virtual numbers compare to the ageing PSTN network that's being switched off in January 2027.

Call Quality: Can Callers Tell the Difference?

No. Modern virtual phone numbers use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology to route calls, and call quality on today's VoIP platforms is identical to a traditional landline. The caller hears a standard UK ringtone, the conversation sounds completely normal, and there's no echo, delay, or robotic quality.

This wasn't always the case. Early VoIP in the 2000s suffered from poor audio, dropped calls, and noticeable delays. But the technology has matured dramatically. Today's VoIP systems routinely deliver latency under 200 milliseconds and have reduced dropped calls by 30% compared with legacy systems.

There's also an important distinction to understand about how calls reach your phone:

With a call-forwarding service like Virtually Local, the call reaches your mobile through the normal mobile network — exactly the same way any other phone call does. Your internet connection isn't involved in the call itself. If you can receive a normal phone call, you can receive a forwarded virtual number call with identical quality.

Uptime: How Often Does It Actually Work?

Top VoIP providers typically guarantee 99.99% uptime. To put that in perspective, 99.99% uptime means less than 53 minutes of downtime per year. For most businesses, that's more reliable than their broadband, their mobile network, and certainly more reliable than the ageing copper phone network.

The cloud infrastructure behind virtual numbers is built with redundancy. If one server fails, calls are automatically routed through another. This is fundamentally different from a traditional landline, where a single fault on your copper line — water ingress, a damaged cable, an exchange failure — takes your entire phone service offline until an engineer can attend.

The Copper Network Is Getting Less Reliable, Not More

There's an assumption that traditional landlines are inherently more reliable than anything internet-based. That may have been true 20 years ago. It isn't today.

BT's own data shows the copper PSTN network is deteriorating rapidly. Fault incidents affecting more than 500 lines hit 1,727 in the first six months of 2022/23 alone — already exceeding the total for the entire previous year. That represented a 143% increase over the same period. And Ofcom's Connected Nations report found that significant PSTN resilience incidents increased by a further 45% in 2024.

The reasons are straightforward: the copper network is decades old, spare parts are increasingly scarce, and engineers have to travel further to find working components. BT has publicly described the network as "increasingly fragile" and urged businesses to migrate away from it.

The copper network isn't just less reliable — it's being permanently retired. Any business still relying on a traditional PSTN landline will need to migrate to an internet-based alternative before 31 January 2027. Openreach has warned that 500,000 business lines still haven't made the switch.

What Happens If Something Goes Wrong?

Every phone system can have problems. The difference is how quickly you can recover. With a traditional landline, a fault means calling BT, waiting for an engineer, and potentially being without a phone for days. You can't do anything yourself to fix it.

With a virtual number, you have options:

The key advantage is control. You can respond to problems yourself, immediately, through an online portal. There's no call to a help desk, no waiting window, and no dependence on a single physical line.

Are Virtual Numbers Legitimate?

Yes. Virtual phone numbers are genuine UK telephone numbers allocated by Ofcom from the same number ranges as traditional landlines. A geographic virtual number starting with 01 or 02 is indistinguishable from a landline installed by BT or any other provider. It's the same type of number, issued under the same regulatory framework.

Ofcom regulations also protect your rights as a virtual number user:

• Number portability — You have the legal right to take your number with you if you switch providers. Under General Condition B3 of the Communications Act 2003, providers cannot refuse a porting request.
• Your number is yours — Whether you've had it for a week or a decade, you own the right to use and port that number.
• Porting override — If a provider tries to block your port, Ofcom's Porting Override Request (POR) process gives your new provider the power to force the transfer.

This means you're not locked in. If you ever want to move your virtual number to a different provider — or even to a traditional landline — you can. The number stays with you.

Does My Broadband Matter?

This depends on how your virtual number delivers calls. If you're using a call forwarding service (which is how Virtually Local works), your broadband doesn't matter at all for the calls themselves. Calls are forwarded to your mobile through the standard phone network. You manage your settings through a web portal, but the calls travel over the mobile network just like any other phone call.

If you're using a VoIP app that routes calls over your internet connection, then yes, your broadband quality matters. You need a stable connection with low latency and minimal packet loss. The good news is that UK broadband has improved significantly — Ofcom's Connected Nations 2025 report recorded average maximum download speeds of 285 Mbps, with gigabit-capable broadband now covering 87% of the UK.

But for most small businesses and sole traders, call forwarding is the simpler and more reliable approach. It removes broadband quality from the equation entirely. For more on this distinction, see our article on using a virtual phone number on your mobile.

The Bottom Line

Virtual phone numbers are not just reliable enough for business use — they're increasingly more reliable than the traditional copper landlines they're replacing. The PSTN network is deteriorating, with fault rates rising sharply year on year, while VoIP platforms offer 99.99% uptime backed by redundant cloud infrastructure.

With a call-forwarding service, call quality is identical to any normal phone call. You're not dependent on your broadband. And when something does go wrong, you can fix it yourself in seconds rather than waiting days for an engineer.

The copper network is being switched off in January 2027 regardless. Virtual numbers already use the technology that everything is moving to. The question isn't whether they're reliable enough — it's whether the alternative still is.