Caller id woes: no ones knows it's me

January 14, 2008 8:18 AM

I have terrible cell reception in my house so I have been forwarding my cell calls to my home phone when I'm at home. This has worked great. There's a problem though.

I'd really like to continue to make calls FROM my cell number. Is this possible (and legal)? I've seen ads for spoof calling cards, but that seems sketchy to me.

I have Vonage at home, which is another added problem because even if I choose to use it, it doesn't show my name. The whole point is that I want people to know that it is me calling and that typically means that I'm calling from my cell. I'd like that to be my main point of contact.

Am I out of luck or is this possible?

posted by jdl to technology (7 comments total)

I've used spoofcard.com but it's not worth the money IMO
posted by thilmony at 8:30 AM on January 14

Do you have reasonable reception outside, or on your roof? There are things you can install to boost your signal strength.
posted by duckstab at 8:40 AM on January 14

While it's not an exact solution to your problem, GrandCentral might be a better one, depending upon your needs. It's free, and you can have all of your outbound calls routed through it so people see your GrandCentral number on caller ID.

I imagine, however, that you might want your cell # to come up in case people save that number and text message you back -- in which case GrandCentral is not the right solution because it doesn't support SMS. However, it's a kickass service for free, I love it. It'll handle your call forwarding and give you a lot more control over how calls are forwarded, etc, too.

Link to grandcentral...
posted by twiggy at 8:42 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]

Thanks, twiggy. I do have a grandcentral account, but you're right about the SMS part being a barrier for this.

And I'll check those out, duckstab--thanks.
posted by jdl at 9:00 AM on January 14

On the off chance you are a T-Mobile subscriber, or can be, they offer a new program called Hotspot@Home, which seamlessly (according to reviews, not personal experience, YMMV) switches between the cell network and wi-fi for calling. Not only does it allow you to get reception anywhere wi-fi is available (and cell coverage isn't), but also doesn't charge you minutes when calls are made over wi-fi.
posted by General Malaise at 9:13 AM on January 14

Well, it's not free, but a little googling of your problem (since I thought it might affect me at some point too) yielded TalkPlus, which allows you to control caller ID, or at least this blog post says so...
posted by twiggy at 9:16 AM on January 14

I have left feedback with GrandCentral (Google) about this issue. I have been hoping they would implement a feature that forwards text messages off to the phone, but I have never got a response back. It is not like they don't already have the technology implemented elsewhere, but I imagine it could be a lot of traffic. More than they want to deal with most likely. I still encourage you guys to leave feedback with them though. This is the first time I have ever heard others voicing the same complaint. GrandCentral is great, but you guys are right that the lack of SMS FWD cripples the service.
posted by B(oYo)BIES at 9:44 AM on January 14