Your Business Landline is now in the palm of your hands.

Get Business Landline calls on your iPhone.

Dublin: Monday 26th of September 2011. Three, Ireland’s largest high speed mobile network and mobile broadband market leader, has together with Blueface launched a new and innovative business offering designed to deliver big business service at small business prices. Three and Blueface are today announcing the introduction of Ireland’s first telephone App delivering a mobile landline service for Three business customers on their iPhone.

This new telecom App is primarily targeted at the SME market, delivering significant cost savings versus existing services with all the flexibility of a mobile network. With Fixed Line penetration currently at 71%, Three and Blueface see a significant opportunity for growth through delivery of a high quality service with a very competitive cost structure.

It is widely acknowledged that Irish businesses currently pay some of the highest landline costs in Europe with Comreg estimates putting it as much as 40% higher than the UK (€25 compared to €15 in the UK). Blueface is a landline app that is free to download with no monthly charges or landline rental, allowing users to make significant savings. It enables you to create a brand new landline number or carry over your existing landline number. With this service, if your customers try to contact you on either your mobile or landline, you can be instantly reached.

Eoin MacManus, Commercial Director at Three commented on the launch: “This agreement with Blueface gives Three a significant advantage over our competitors in the SME market. This simple, easy to use service will mean businesses can now have all the benefits of a fixed line number with the flexibility of mobile communications at exceptional value. We are delighted to bring this innovative product to the market and look forward to working with current and potential business customers to offer them some of the best value business communications solutions in Ireland.”

Alan Foy CEO, Blueface revealed his delight at the deal: “Blueface are delighted to be partnering with an innovative operator like Three to launch this unique landline service to small businesses. The Three landline App not only provides business customers with an innovative way of accessing a fixed landline but also enables customers to save costs by removing fixed cost monthly line rental and by using Blueface’s low-cost international call rates. Blueface are continually innovating to provide our SME customers with big business communications services at a small business price, and we look forward to providing even more developments in the near future.”

This new offer from Three combines innovative new technology with an attractive pricing structure. The App is free to download and there is a once off activation fee of €10 (ex VAT). Charges to make or receive calls are 15c (ex VAT) peak, off peak and weekends. The service is available on a Business Solo Plan with Three costing €75 per month. This includes
unlimited Mobile & Landline ROI and UK calls, unlimited texts for ROI together with unlimited Data. International calls cost 12c EU, 10c US and Canada and 20c Rest of the World. Roaming charges include: EU calls are 25c to make, 11c to receive; making and receiving calls from US are 75c; making and receiving calls from Rest of the World cost 99c and world Data Charges are 99c per MB.

Blueface developed the award winning app in connection with Vennetics, an innovator in telecommunication and IT application solutions, using GSM OneAPI specifications. This partnership between Blueface and Vennetics resulted in the companies winning the North / South Collaboration Award at the Irish Times Innovation Awards 2011. The App is not only the first Telecom App in Ireland but also a world first in terms of the newly adapted One API specifications as agreed by the GSMA.

Three has launched a number of ground–breaking initiatives including Ireland’s first ‘All you can eat’ data offering on both Postpay and Prepay, allowing customers to surf for free, with no excess charges. Three is proud sponsor of the Irish National football team and the Football Association of Ireland. Three’s “Dare to Dream” affinity scheme offers Football Association of Ireland-affiliated clubs across the country the chance to earn cash when their members switch to Three which helps with its support and development of grass roots football

Published in Feburary ’10, The article featured in the Sunday Independent. Written by Shane Ross it focuses on the FREE CALLS FOR LIFE offer, and how it saves the general consumer a huge amount on their telephone bill.

Hannah Flattery posing for Blueface

So,what can small businesses, haemorrhaging with cashflow problems, do? One way they can cut costs is by cancelling their subscription to the SFA. Another is by ensuring that they owe no money to AIB. A third is by reducing landline phone charges.

Last week, I found a new way of slashing my home telephone bill, courtesy of a small business with big ideas. Any scheme that kicks Eircom in the solar plexus is good news for those of us who have been victims of the dinosaur for decades.

So, it was wonderful to stumble on a small business start-up that promises to put another nail in the Eircom coffin. Two entrepreneurs entered my life. They will not be joining the SFA or borrowing from AIB. So far they have taken the private equity route.

As a crusty sceptic, I gave Alan Foy and Brendan Gaffney of Blueface a sideways glance when they insisted that I could have “free landline calls for life” if i handed over €199.

I have to confess as a punter who lost Stg£200 in the Eighties on the three-card trick to a man with an orange box just outside Harrods, I am a bit wary of racing certainties.

But knowing the pair well, I handed over the money and tested the product. The two telecom wizards installed a phone and promised me that I now have free landline calls for life.

Blueface has landed a recession buster. The phone provided will eliminate my line rental charge, provided I have a decent broadband connection. I reckon that the end of rental fee alone will reduce my telephone bill by hundreds of euro every year. Not to mention the free calls.

The phone is a cordless handset, easily attached to my old number. I will still pay for mobile calls through pre-payment and any calls outside the country, but even the mobile charges are cheaper than Eircom’s.

I win on the rental, there is none. I win on the mobile charges, they are cheaper. Two fingers to Eircom.

Any punter who wants free landline calls for life should head to blueface.ie. It is Skype without the computer. Blueface is exactly the type of resourceful small business that Ireland needs.  Consumers will love it becuase it will dramatically cut the household budget. So far the offer is only open to residential customers. But Blueface already has visionary plans for small business. The company is lead by a group of young entrepreneurs determined to shake-up the telecoms market. They are launching the ideal product for a downturn, watch this space.

The free landline offer may not be open forever. But it is for life!

As part of the Top support queries, I wanted to provide some more information about number porting in Ireland since it’s an important process for customers and it’s usually an action people are stressed about as it can appear quite confusing. It is definitely something you should consider if you want to stop paying line rental, as porting your number to Blueface will eliminate this. We would like to make things as easy as possible for you so here is some information on number porting to help you out.

Can I port a number from an ISDN or DSL line?

You can port your number from almost all telephone line types – PSTN (standard phone lines), ISDN , Virtual Lines, and you can even port your Fax number.

If you have DSL Broadband (this is Broadband that runs over your telephone line) then you will need to get this Broadband removed from the line before you submit a number port request to us here at Blueface. Unfortunately it is not possible to port your phone number if there is Broadband on the phone line – this is mainly because your phone line will cease working when your number has been ported over, so you wouldn’t have use of your Broadband then anyway.

Some people get around this by getting their Broadband provider to put their Broadband on a separate phone line – this can often take some time however. It will then leave your phone number on a line of its own so that we can then port it over. The other most common solution that customers use is to cancel their Broadband on their phone line and move to a Broadband provider that does not require a telephone line – such as wireless Broadband, for example. This will then cut your costs as you will no longer have any line rental to pay at all as your phone line will cease when your number has ported over so your phone number will be on your Blueface account and you will have your Broadband with your new provider. Most people go with this option so that they can cut their line rental costs, as this is often what makes up the bulk of customers monthly telephone bills.

You can also port your number to Blueface if it is an ISDN line. An ISDN line is basically a pair of two telephone numbers together on one phone line. ISDN lines are either High Speed or Basic Rate. We can port both types of ISDN lines, but the one thing to remember with ISDN lines is that we must port both numbers from the pair together at the one time. All phone numbers on the one phone line must be ported together.

Other number porting queries that pop up often are mentioned on our number porting page.

If you need more information or have a question about this feature, do not hesitate to start a conversation on our forum.

Alison