Business number of my cellular telephone

January 7, 2016 2:24 PM

I'd like to get a "business" number that gets forwarded to my cell phone. I'd like text messages to be forwarded also. It be nice if I could specify that the calls are to be forwarded between 8am and 6pm for example. I'm in Canada.
posted by aeighty to Technology (9 answers total)

Google Voice? I created a "desk line" with Google Voice to answer calls on my computer. I know a specific feature is that it can forward all calls to your cell phone -- the problem is I think when it forwards there may be a message that says something like "trying to reach this Google Voice customer" or something -- but I don't use call forwarding, so you may be able to change it or I may be mistaken. Google Voice numbers are free, so worth a shot. It also sends voicemails and texts to your email, which you'll get on your cell phone anyway.
posted by AppleTurnover at 2:29 PM on January 7, 2016

Best answer: Here is a call forwarding service that may work.
posted by lizbunny at 2:39 PM on January 7, 2016

Google Voice isn't supported in Canada, as it seems. (You'd end up with a US number, which would probably be non-ideal, and it won't forward stuff to non-US phone numbers.) It's kinda annoying because it would do pretty much everything you want here. A bit of quick googling came up with TellFi, which seems to be really similar but I'm not horribly sure it's trustworthy. Their SSL certificate expired in March, 2014, which is a bit of a red flag for me, but maybe someone can vouch for them.. There were a few other providers I found by googling for "virtual number canada" as well that may be worth a look.
posted by mrg at 2:39 PM on January 7, 2016

I use Google Voice to do this, but I'm in the US.

This article has suggestions for Canada. (Note: Unfortunately there isn't a date on the article.) There's also a blog dedicated to the topic googlevoicecanada.blogspot.com/
posted by 26.2 at 2:41 PM on January 7, 2016

One other thought is to get a duel sim card phone. Put one line on Do Not Disturb during the hours you wish to, well, not be disturbed.
posted by AugustWest at 2:51 PM on January 7, 2016

Best answer: If you're a bit technical you can do this with voip.ms in almost any country. They forward text messages as well. You can even get an ObiHai box that would let you have a landline as well.
posted by wnissen at 3:01 PM on January 7, 2016

Their prices aren't on their website for some reason but these guys offer exactly this service for a very reasonable price for small businesses: http://on.octagram.net/phone-services/

They are based in Canada.
posted by margaretlam at 3:05 PM on January 7, 2016

I've happily used Send My Call in the US. It's supported in Canada, but at least in the US, text messages were not supported. I suspect that may be a sticking point with virtual numbers.
posted by jaguar at 3:06 PM on January 7, 2016

Grasshopper works great for my organization, but I don't know if they operate in Canada.
posted by postel's law at 7:02 PM on January 7, 2016