The Competition for Your Number Heats Up
It used to be that your phone number only defined your location, as it was assigned based on your physical address. If you weren’t at that address, you missed the call. With cell phones your phone number was defined by your device. You could stick that device and your number in your pocket and take it with you.
Now the paradigm is changing once again and like an email address, those digits can now define you, not the technology. It doesn’t matter what device you use to actually have your conversation…landline, cell phone, computer. Your choice. You pick a local phone number simply to accommodate folks who are still doing things the old way.
A number of web applications have sprung up to help guide our move away from device-centered communication. It’s an evolution process beyond standard VoIP (Vonage, Lingo, OptimumVoice, etc.). Those services use new-ish technology to use traditional telephones in traditional ways. The shape of what’s to come breaks the phone number free from previous device-centered barriers. We’re not “there yet” as most of these services are beta and buggy. Only play right now if you’re an early-adopter type and mobility and flexibility are higher priorities that reliability and call quality. The promise is what makes this space interesting for web workers.
GrandCentral has kicked it up a notch with their new mobile interface. Their Flash-heavy desktop site is replaced by a light easy-to-navigate HTML version on mobile browsers. If a phone can play an MP3 file (older Blackberrys may be left out), you can skim your entire inbox of voicemail and play back messages on the fly in whatever order you choose. This is an improvement over the CallWave product mentioned a couple of weeks ago, since this interface is available right from the mobile phone. GrandCentral has added a premium (2.5 cents per minute) click-to-call feature so calls placed from the mobile interface will have the GrandCentral number as the caller ID. They are also teasing that you can forward your mobile carrier’s voicemail to GrandCentral so you don’t have to check two voicemail systems from your phone if folks still use your mobile number.
Masque Number provides a more disposable phone number that allows you to pre-screen your calls, forward to the number(s) of your choice and change voicemail based on the time of day. You can post your phone number on your website, or give it out freely without worry. Give folks you’re nervous about a phone number just for them. Drop it any time and you don’t have to let everyone else know you’ve changed phone numbers yet again. Pricing is on a monthly basis based on the quantity of phone numbers you “own” and you can throw out numbers at any time without penalty.
Skype offers a SkypeIn phone number for $38 per year (US$). Combine with a SkypeOut plan so you can forward your Skype number when you’re away from your computer. Gizmo offers a similar service.
At this point, Grand Central is the company to watch. Is it time to tell all your friends your new phone number and reprint your business cards? Probably not. These services are just getting off the ground. Outages are to be expected, and it remains to be seen if there is enough profit here for these companies to stay afloat. If you sign up and hate the service, retaining your new phone number with a different service or carrier may not be possible. In the meantime, if you are willing to take the chance, it’s nice to give out a phone number that literally has your name on it.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
I think this is the future. We have couple of years to go before this is implemented.
I recently switched my business number to my grandcentral number. Definitely makes it easier with having it automatically forward calls to different numbers.
With Asterisk being so easy to implement these days and you can basically get all the functionality from Grandcentral from an Asterisk server you host at home off your cable box the answer to me would be why bother.
Cheers,
Dean
P.S. If you have no idea what Asterisk is…wake up snapperhead and go to http://www.asterisk.org or you can go to my website for a 60 second overview http://www.cognation.net/asterisk
What GrandCentral and others are doing is a great service, and the idea of freeing the phone number from the provider is a massive paradigm-shift but also the logical evolution of the use of the voice system.
I wonder, thought, how is this different from the same services I have been using from VoicePulse (a small VoIP provider) for the last 3-4 years? They do what used to be called “call hunt” (ringing all my phones simultaneously or in sequence), different rings for different callers, automatic send-to-voicemail for selected callers, etc. etc. etc.?
And many of the smaller VoIP providers do similar things. I don’t see value in this over and above what’s already there, just a new entrant. I am wondering what this community thinks.
But I’ll also add that I’d love to add voice IM, web conferencing, etc. to my “voice connection” – I’d really just like to be able to talk to whoever I choose whenever and whereever and from whatever device I choose…this is still a few years off….
Jeff, I see the big difference between “traditional” VoIP and what a company like GrandCentral is doing is the device-independence. My Vonage number is tied to the adapter attached to my router. Without that, I effectively don’t have a service. I’m not familiar with VoicePulse, but I imagine it’s tied to their special phone or adapter in a similar way. GrandCentral attaches the number to the individual not a physical device. That’s what I find incredibly interesting about all this. Your email addresses is tied to you you, not Outlook, Thunderbird, or the browser you use to read it. It used to be that an aol.com email address was about the client software. Not anymore. Voice communications are moving there now.
At the moment what seperates GrandCentral from other voip providers, is it’s free.
Judi:
I completely agree with your point that what is interesting is the shift in focus from the number being tied to a device/location vs. the number being tied to you. That is in fact what makes it interesting, and what continues to prove that the evolution of the network is the focus on the individual rather than the technology or the service.
But if I may suggest, the difference you point out in the services is rather subtle.
If I understand, GrandCentral will take an incoming call to your virtual number and let you decide how, when, where and whether to deliver it. It can go to my home land-line, my cell, my office, my voice mail, all of the above at the same time or in sequence or none of the above, and the decision can be based on who is calling, when they are calling, etc.
My VoicePulse service (not new…>4 years old now) does exactly the same thing, including e-mail notification of voice mail (to SMS also) . There are probably a few variations on the theme which might make a big difference to some people.
Here is the key difference as far as I can see. You are exactly right in your statement that the number I have from VoicePulse is tied to a box that sits on my home network. There’s a physical phone attached to that box. Having the calls just go to that phone is one of the options.
Other than ringing that physical phone, all of the other options are available even if I take the device off my network and hide it in a closet.
GrandCentral, if I understand it, resides entirely in “the cloud,” meaning there’s nothing on my network, and no requirement that I even have a network.
That can be a big advantage if you don’t have a network, or don’t really want to futz with a box at all.
The reason I signed up for the VoicePulse number (over Vonage, 8×8 and other early VoIP providers) was exactly the ability to make my number mine as opposed to my box’s.
Though JT points out another big advantage of GrandCentral – the price (Free) as opposed to the monthly fee I pay VoicePulse for the priveledge.
So now that I’ve bored you with the details, I think the key issue with something like GrandCentral is that it’s good…very good, in fact, but I can’t see anything so new or different about it that would cause me to consider switching.
All that said, there is one thing that (AFAIK) none of the VoIP or GrandCentral-like providers do that would truly attach my phone number to me in the way that my e-mail is attached to me. (possible exception: Jajah – I don’t know if they do). That is:
When I call someone from any device, anywhere, anytime, the return caller ID shows up as my contact number.
This requires some network tricks, but it’s the way e-mail works, and when someone gets that done with a good service, then I’ll swtich also.