Gang Aft Agley

I believe it was on WWD (online and confirmed), that I saw the link to this somewhat new service. While I have had my own email addresses that haven’t changed in 7 years, we somehow keep changing phones. 3 different cellphone numbers, numerous work numbers and at least 2 home numbers in that time period. While I currently have both a land line, and cell number, there are times while working at home that I wish all calls would come in on the land line, though once answered its a hassle to switch to the other phone, as our home battery is desperately in need of replacement, though we cant make up our mind to keep the phone, so are hesitant to spend money on a replacement.

With my recent commitment to full time telecommuting, as opposed to refusing to come into the branch office for 4 months, Im really looking at the portability aspect of things. We are in the process of ditching the DSL for clearwire have a refer-a-friend plan but they don’t give a link) which allows me to quickly stash the receiver in my bag and know that I have an access point around town. It has already been put to use at the dentist and the vets office.

Back to the point of grand central, it allows me to set up several numbers that I want to have all calls forwarded to, and I have the freedom to answer the call on any of them that I choose. As I already use Skype for a majority of my outbound calling, I foresee adding a skype-in number into the mix as well so that when I have the wifi connection I can kick the call of the cell phone and conserve a few more minutes.

[later]

So a few phone calls in and it has this habit of screening calls. I thought I turned it off after the first call, but it seems to keep screening. The first time it asked the caller for their name, so I changed the setting to not require screening. After that when I got a call, I heard an automated voice saying something like “you have a call from unknown caller press ‘1’ to accept the call.” Sorry, I know how voicemail, caller id etc all work, and if I pick up the phone, I expect to have the call go through without having to accept the call. The idea is good, but the experience isn’t seamless, which it needs to be if they want me to continue using it.

[updated] Corrected typos at mom’s request