Forwarding to a Cell Phone

February 1, 2007 4:31 PM

What is the best way to get a phone number with a specific area code, and have calls to that number forwarded to an existing cell phone?

To avoid carrying around a second phone, I'd prefer to stay away from prepaid cell plans. I do currently have a Cingular plan, and since I am pretty sure I can forward my calls to it for free, I'd like to take advantage of that. So, what's the best way to get a phone number with a specific area code, and have it forwarded to my current cellular number?

posted by scarlet to grab bag (7 comments total)

I'm not that familiar with the American phone system, but I would have thought that most VoIP companies would offer this service to you.

The number you are looking for is called a DID (Direct In Dial) number and you would just organise to have it permanantly diverted to your cell phone. It may cost you a bit for the diversion though.
posted by ranglin at 4:37 PM on February 1, 2007

Sorry, VoIP = Voice Over IP (i.e. Vonage), which is a service that allows you to make phone calls over the Internet.
posted by ranglin at 4:41 PM on February 1, 2007

Grand Central. Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but it does allow you to pick a number in almost any area code and forward it to multiple numbers.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 4:49 PM on February 1, 2007

Yup, Vonage will let you choose an area code, and also let you forward all the calls to another number.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 4:52 PM on February 1, 2007

Gizmo Project can do this for pretty cheap (2 cents a minute in the US, I think?)
posted by spaceman_spiff at 5:16 PM on February 1, 2007

Grand Central, which JohnnyGunn mentioned, will let you do this for free, and you can actually have it ring multiple phones simultaneously (if, for example, you wanted it to ring to your landline and cell).

A potential downside is that your voicemail ends up on Grandcentral, not your cellphone provider, but grandcentral will automatically e-mail it to you and/or send you an SMS.
posted by Good Brain at 5:27 PM on February 1, 2007

Thanks for the great advice. I checked out GrandCentral, and it seems like that'll work fine (and free? awesome!). It looks like they're in beta, but I won't be using this for any mission-critical phone calls anyway. Thanks again all.
posted by scarlet at 6:04 PM on February 1, 2007