PhoneGnome Gets Virtual–Numbers, that is
One of the features that companies like Vonage have touted for years is the ability to get a telephone number anywhere you want. Live in Seattle but want a local number in San Francisco? You can get one. On Skype, my SkypeIn number is actually a San Jose, California number.
The folks at PhoneGnome have partnered up with DID Worldwide to bring this same functionality to your PhoneGnome. You buy a DID from their website–US DIDs cost $5 to set up and cost $5 a month with no setup or per-call fees. Other countries are available too. I didn’t check the number availability in other countries, but the US rate centers listed were pretty weak. They do provide a mechanism to request DIDs in a particular rate center, though I have no idea how successful that will be. The calls to this number are delivered over VoIP to your PhoneGnome and integrate with all your PhoneGnome features, which is an added bonus.
David Beckemeyer is really making it possible for you to keep your reliable phone line and get all the cool VoIP features. It’d be nice if I could use my IP Phone with PhoneGnome. I really detest my analog handset and would prefer to use my SPA941. Of course I can do this today using SoftGnome, but the call path would go out the Internet and back to my SPA941. Hardly my idea of fun.
tags: voip, phonegnome, did, direct inward dial
