Virtual Office Resource

U.K.-based startup CircleLoop now provides a cloud-based phone service. It’s aimed at small and medium enterprises. And it provides the ability for users to unify their landline and mobile calling experiences, do away with deskphones, and move to a single simple billing plan.

CircleLoop went into beta in November. Today it provides services based on the online phone system to nearly 1,000 users.

These subscribers can tap into all of their numbers, contacts, and calling features via the CircleLoop app. As a result, they don’t require a deskphone. Instead they can simply use their existing connected computers and smartphones to use the service.

That means CircleLoop users can more easily work from any device and any location. And it lets these individuals use their own endpoints to get the job done, while enabling businesses to avoid the expense of providing workers with devices.

Because it merges fixed and mobile calling accounts, there’s no need for businesses to have separate contracts with multiple service providers. CircleLoop provides a single bill.

Users do, however, need to provide their own data connectivity. CircleLoop uses about 1mb of data per minute, but that varies based on the features used.

CircleLoop features include national and local numbers, voicemail, voicemail to text, do not disturb based on date and time, a live feed of calling activity, notifications, device sync, a backup number for when no data or Wi-Fi is available, and integrations with popular communications tools including HipChat and Slack.

Also, CircleLoop provides administrators with the ability to quickly and easily add numbers, add users, and create teams.

The service, which is available for a 7-day free trial, comes in two packages. The standard 10-pound per user per month offer provides each user with three business phone numbers, international calls and U.K. calls billed at 3p per minute, and voicemail transcription for 5p per minute. The Pro plan sells for 15 pounds per user per month. It includes all the standard features, plus free voicemail transcription, and unlimited U.K. landline and mobile calls.

Damian Hanson and David Hague established CircleLoop and Mission Labs, of which CircleLoop is the core product. They are based in The Sharp (News - Alert) Project, a hub in Manchester for digital businesses. This is the second joint startup for these gentlemen, who also collaborated on a retail technology company called One iota. They sold that company to the Sanderson Group in October of 2013.

In a blog posted earlier this year Hanson wrote: “We’re thrilled to be building something new, and we have our sights set on trying to modernize and disrupt another sector – telecoms. We look at it and see a lot of opportunity to take on the traditional large providers and develop new innovative products that customers will love.”