Techmeme points us to a great write-up on GrandCentral by David Pogue in today’s New York Times.
I’ve been using GrandCentral for awhile now, and David’s article does a nice job of introducing “what it’s all about”
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This news seems more like a good piece of Public Relation work than a technical breaktrought to me and I want to tell you why: If we all would be using ENUM the deal between GrandCentral and Gizmo wouldn’t be big news. With ENUM I can already route m….

GrandCentral, the single phone number Web based service launched last fall, is adding support for the free Gizmo Project Internet VoIP service, which may open up a whole new way to decrease spending on international or long-distance calling. Still in…..

you can forward your GrandCentral calls to your
SkypeIN number, but there’s a catch -

With a SkypeIN number, you get Voicemail for free.
That’s swell and all, but we GrandCentral users
have no use for Skype’s voicemail really. So, we turn it off - or at least we try to!

Unless you have your Skype(IN) Account logged-in
and running, Skype does not acknowledge your Voicemail
(on/off) setting preference. What that means is that
even if you have ‘deactivated’ your Skype Voicemail
(if your Skype account IS NOT ‘online’)
any GrandCentral calls forwarded to your SkypeIN #
will be sent to Skype Voicemail - almost immediately.
So much for trying to answer that call via your cell
or having the call go to GrandCentral voicemail.

Silly Skype!

Hopefully, this ‘auto-on voicemail failover’ attribute
is not present in Gizmo - is it?

Another problem I’ve run-up against is the ’system status’
of the number you are forwarding your GC # to.
For example, you have your GC # forwarded to your
VOIP-based #, your cell #, and your landline #.
If your VOIP # or cell provider’s system is down for
some reason, that ‘down’ system will prematurely ‘take’
the GC-forwarded call and greet the caller with
“the cellular caller is not available,”
a fast busy signal, or “all circuits are busy” -
they won’t be offered to leave a message on the
GC-provided voicemail. This has happened to me in both
cell and VOIP cases. I’m not sure how this can be
dealt with really, other than to not have your GC
calls forwarded to ‘possibly unreliable’ numbers, I guess.

I suggested to GC (back in 12/06) to allow GC users to ’stamp’
all forwarded calls with a Caller ID # (of our own choice)
to fully exploit certain cellular carrier’s ‘MOC number’
features to the Nth degree. GC met my request half-way
and currently allows CallerID to either ‘pass through’ unaltered
or to be ‘relabeled’ with ones GC number.

At least ALL my INCOMING CALLS are now FREE with my cell plan.

If I were able to enter MY OWN choice of # for the CallerID (to be labelled)
I would use my SkypeIN number -
that way, all incoming would still be free for me,
but also my OUTBOUND CALLS would also be FREE,
by using TumaraXS and my SkypeIN number to access my SkypeOUT unlimited US & Canada minutes

(Granted, I have to have Skype running and logged in on my PC to make use of TumaraXS in this scenario)

Markus,

The other thing you’re neglecting to give
GrandCentral credit for is their rules
processing. As one of the beta testers, I’ve
found this to be the most powerful feature. I
have groups of callers routed to particular phone
numbers of mine, at particular times of the day,
and can add new rules as new numbers enter my
contact list very easily.

Making that all acronym-free for the masses is
where services like GrandCentral will shine.

Well, the newest versions of the Fritz!Box do this out of the box. No acronyms needed. Just some clicks in the browser.

http://www.avm.de/en/Produkte/FRITZBox/index.html

Incoming calls can be treated individually. You can for instance block unwanted calls or pass them to an answering machine. Friends and business partners can be redirected to a mobile phone, even if the call signal of the phone that’s connected to the Fritz!Box is switched off.

I am using such a Fritz!Box at home. It’s connected between my old telephone and the DSL connection. So all my calls go for free or for very modest prices over the internet. I do the configuration in my browser and it’s very easy. You can see an example here:

http://www.avm.de/de/Presse/Pressefotos/Fotos/AVM_Pressefoto_FRITZBox_Firmware_Upgrade.jpg

In fact the Fritz!Box is an entire PBX and cost me only 30 Euros, because I bought it used. It can do everything that GrandCentral does. Even an ENUM lookup before every call. But this is a hidden function for which you have to tweak the Linux that runs on the box. The Fritz!Box is getting better and better with every firmware update.

The other thing you’re neglecting to give GrandCentral credit for is their rules processing. As one of the beta testers, I’ve found this to be the most powerful feature. I have groups of callers routed to particular phone numbers of mine, at particular times of the day, and can add new rules as new numbers enter my contact list very easily.

Making that all acronym-free for the masses is where services like GrandCentral will shine.

Markus,
“Well, if we all would be using ENUM the deal
between GrandCentral and Gizmo wouldn’t be big
news.”
Well i guess since we’re all NOT using ENUM, this
is big news then, right?
If we all would be talking Esperanto,
communications would be easier too

Mmmmmmmmhhhhhhhh, I understand your criticism to my words.

But the point is that it’s totally easy to do an ENUM lookup before every call. SNOM VoIP phones do it automatically before they start the call. The VoIP providers could do it automatically before the VoIP call starts. Also they could enlist all their numbers in ENUM. The client wouldn’t even notice that ENUM is working in the background.

It would just be all over IP and for free. But the VoIP providers don’t do it because the earn very well not doing ENUM and charge for calls that technically could be for free.

I just love things easy that do not require a
dictionary (like figuring out what ENUM even is)

That would be possible if they would use ENUM. You wouldn’t even notice.

you’d still get dinged the cost of paying for GrandCentral (the company’s web site gives no information about eventual costs, but press reports have put the expected starting range around $10-15 per month

If my understanding is correct, Grandcentral is going to offer this phone number and basic routing service for free. Atleast, this is my understanding from their website and blog. Can you then explain me the $10-15 price tag. is it for addons or for the basic service itself? If GC guys are hanging out here, consider clarifying this please.