When does the UK PSTN switch off?

BT Openreach is retiring the UK PSTN (WLR 2) on 31 January 2027. Every UK business landline must move to a digital service such as VoIP or full-fibre voice before that date.

What is the cheapest UK business VoIP?

Silux Call offers a free seat tier (1 user, 1 UK DDI, 30 minutes/month) and Pay-as-you-go from £0/month + £0.02 per UK landline minute, with no contract. Paid plans start at £6.95/user/month and come with a 30-day free trial.

Does Silux Call have a free trial, and do I need a credit card?

Yes. Every paid plan comes with a 30-day free trial and no credit card is required to start — most UK rivals offer only a 7 or 14-day trial, and several require a card up front. You can also stay on a permanently free seat with no card at all. Signing up takes about 60 seconds.

How quickly can I get a UK virtual landline number?

You can sign up in about 60 seconds and choose a UK virtual landline number (020, 0161, 03 or 0800) instantly — no engineer visit, no hardware and no contract. Existing numbers port across free on Plus and above, typically within 24 hours.

Can I keep my existing phone number?

Yes — Silux Call offers free UK number porting on Plus and above, typically completing in 24 hours. We support PAC and STAC porting workflows.

Does Silux Call work with Microsoft Teams?

Yes — Silux Call supports Microsoft Teams Direct Routing on the Pro tier, including a self-service onboarding wizard that issues the PowerShell snippet for your Teams admin.

Is Silux Call GDPR and HIPAA compliant?

Silux Call ships UK GDPR-compliant call recording with two-party consent flows, plus one-click HIPAA enrolment that locks 6-year retention, KMS-backed encryption, and PCI DTMF redaction. A one-click compliance report exports an auditor-ready PDF.

How does Silux Call block scam calls?

Silux Call screens every inbound call with an AI scam shield in under 0.5 seconds. Known HMRC, parcel, and account-spoof patterns are blocked before your phone rings — a feature no other UK business VoIP provider ships.

PCI DSS payment-by-phone for UK SMBs

How DTMF redaction keeps you in SAQ-A scope and saves the £20k a year that a full PCI audit costs.

If you take card payments over the phone, you are in PCI DSS scope. The default scope (SAQ-D) is a £15-25k annual headache. With DTMF redaction you can drop to SAQ-A — a 20-page self-assessment instead of a 350-page one.

What PCI DSS is

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is the contract you signed with your acquiring bank when you started taking cards. It's not law, but a breach lets the card schemes fine you £50-£90 per exposed card and revoke your merchant account.

The four PCI scopes that matter for phone payments

SAQ-A — you never see, store or transmit cardholder data. Easiest scope. Achievable with DTMF redaction or tokenised links.
SAQ-A-EP — your website redirects to a payment processor (e.g. Stripe Checkout). Not phone-related.
SAQ-D-Lite — you handle cardholder data on the phone, but you have DTMF capture + recording redaction. Mid-difficulty.
SAQ-D (full) — agents read and type the card. Worst case; full PCI audit.

How DTMF redaction works

When the caller presses card digits on their keypad, those tones (DTMF) travel as in-band audio. Silux Call's PCI module:

Detects entry into the dialplan extension you've designated as the “payment-capture” trigger.
Mutes the recording stream for the duration of the digit entry.
Writes a redaction marker into the recording metadata so auditors can see *when* digits were collected without ever hearing them.
Tokenises the digits with Stripe before they touch your dialplan log.

The cost saving

Scope	Typical annual cost
SAQ-D (full QSA audit)	£15,000-£25,000
SAQ-D-Lite	£3,000-£6,000
SAQ-A (with DTMF redaction)	£500-£1,500

Enabling it in Silux Call

Go to Dashboard → Recording & PCI settings, switch on PCI DTMF redaction, and set the dialplan trigger extension. Default is payment-capture — match it with the macro name in your IVR.

Common gotchas

Recording on the agent's headset — if your agents use a third-party recorder (Verint, Calabrio), it bypasses our redaction. Disable it.
Background noise gates — some headsets pick up the DTMF tone via the agent's microphone. Silux Call's policy gates the agent side too.
Manual entry by the agent — if your agents *type* the card on a web form instead of using DTMF, you're back in SAQ-D scope. Use our Stripe Elements path (Feature 1B) instead.