For years, my Delaware Shakespeare Festival had a central phone number, but did not have a central office or operator. So many calls got lost or responded too well too late. It was an unfortunate shortcoming that we could not find a (cost free) means of forwarding that one number to a different or even multiple other phone numbers to actually answer.

A few years late, here is GrandCentral.com. This service does exactly what I was looking for five years ago, it will give me a phone number to give out, and that number will ring any or all of my other phones (home, cell, work, wife’s cell, etc). I can program which numbers to ring and when. I am still kicking the tires on this service, but if it works as well as I anticipate, I think this is the death nail for my home phone, which I pay $35 a month to essentially have a non-cell phone number.

They are only in Beta, but I have a few “Recommend a Friend” opportunities available if you are interested.