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Tame Your Phones (& Their Numbers)

by Larry Magid
September 26, 2006

Like a lot of people these days, I have almost as many phone numbers as I have remote controls in my living room. There is my home number, my cell number, my business number, my incoming Skype number and a couple of extra phone numbers that I use from time to time.

Because I move around from one place to another, being reachable means giving out all of these numbers, or having people call me on my cell phone, which can be annoying when it rings at an inopportune time and place.

And then there are all those voicemail boxes to manage. To make things even worse, sometimes it's necessary to change numbers if you change jobs, change cell phones or move to a new location.

A new service unveiled this week at the DEMOfall conference show in San Diego is aimed at solving these problems.

GrandCentral describes its new service as "one number for life." Although the service will eventually cost $14.99 a month, it is available to try out for free for at least the next 60 days.

Here's how it works. When you sign up at the website, you get a choice of local numbers, based on your area code. You then use the company's web site to configure your account with up to six phone numbers such as your home number, office number, cell phone and any other phone where you might be reached.

Then when someone calls your new Grand Central number, the caller hears a recording asking them to say their name. That triggers the system to simultaneously call all of your numbers.

As soon as you answer any of your phone numbers, you will hear a recording with name of the caller, prompting you to "press 1 to accept the call, 2 to send the call to voice mail, 3 to listen in on the voice mail or 4 to accept and record the call."

If you select option 3, you will hear the person leaving a message but you can interrupt and accept the call at any time by pressing the * key. If you press 4, you take the call as usual but the service will record it for you. Some states prohibit recording calls unless the other party is informed.

There is nothing particularly unique about a call-forwarding service but Grand Central has a number of other interesting features. For one thing, its voice mail is quite advanced. You never have to delete your messages, because they're permanently archived and accessible from the web site. You can fast forward through the messages, if you wish; it's also possible to forward your messages, from the website or from a phone.

The service also has ways to customize the way you treat callers. You can create groups such as "friends," "family," "work" and others, and have different routing options for calls in each category.

You could, for example, have your friends forwarded to your cell and home phone but chose to have work callers go only to the cell phone. You could have people in the "other" category go directly to voice mail.

You can also customize your greeting for each group. You can also change what the caller hears while your phone is ringing. Instead of that usual buzzing sound, it could be a song, your voice or a ring that sounds like it's coming from a European, British or Japanese phone. As with greetings, you can change that sound depending on who is calling.

The service allows you to create an address book with your contacts that you type in or import from Outlook or another file. Each person can be assigned to a caller group or you can specify how that person's calls will be handled.

You could record a special greeting just for your spouse, or route his or her calls to a private line. You can also block callers that you don't want to hear from (though hopefully not your spouse). One nice thing about this service is that you don't have to disclose your actual phone number. If someone bothers you, you can block their calls.

In addition to being able to record a call as you take it, you can turn on a recorder at any time by pressing 4 in the middle of that call. While I can think of ways that can be used in an unethical manner, it can also be quite helpful.

For example, if you're driving and can't take notes, you could turn on the recorder and listen to it later from the web site. I used this feature to record a podcast interview I did with GrandCentral CEO Craig Walker.

One of my favorite features is call switch. At any time, you can press the star key (*) to have the call switched from the phone you're on to another phone. For example, if you're talking with someone on your home phone but need to leave, you can transfer it to your cell phone without missing a beat. Likewise, you can save cellular minutes by transferring a cell phone call to a landline when you arrive at your home or office.

Grand Central is currently in a free beta trial for at least the next 60 days.

Eventually the company plans to charge $14.99 a month for the full service, but they expect to continue to offer a free service including voicemail and up to 100 minutes a month of incoming calls per month.