| | | | |

Google Offers Free Universal Phone Numbers – And I’ve Got Invites

ByJohn P.

GrandCentralGoogle recently acquired a company called GrandCentral, which I was preparing to do a review of anyway after testing the service out a bit. This only makes the offering all that much stronger, and in my opinion it’s something everyone should try out.

Here is the Google acquisition announcement which took about 2 seconds to download directly from my voice mail:
Google Buys GrandCentral

GrandCentral links all of your phone numbers together and layers on a TON of new features. How? They are giving people One Number…for Life – a number that’s not tied to a phone or a location – but tied to you. This number will consolidate your voice messaging, route calls to wherever you are, and even allow you to screen your calls.

With GrandCentral, you can be reached with a single number, answer a call at any phone you want, seamlessly switch phones in the middle of a call, and even know whether a call is important before you take it.

Here are just a few of the features:

    GrandCentral Screenshot

  • Check your messages by phone, email, or online
  • Keep all your messages online for eternity
  • Record and store your phone calls (just like voicemail)
  • Quickly (and secretly) block an annoying caller
  • Click-to-dial from your address book
  • Surprise your callers with a custom voicemail greeting
  • Forward, download, and add notes to your messages

Folks, if you’ve never used a Find-me, Follow-me service before or had access to your voicemails as e-mail attachments then you don’t know what you’re missing. You really, really need to sign up.

There are a great number of advantages to having this service:

  • First, you are no longer tied to a service provider for your phone number. You can change cell numbers, home numbers… whatever. Your GrandCentral number never changes.
  • You can set up call screening which requires unknown callers to announce themselves before you accept the call. No more solicitations!
  • You can have multiple phones ring simultaneously and grab the one that’s most convenient (or cheapest).
  • You can put a “Click to Call” button on your Web site for people to reach you directly from your site.
  • While you’re at home or in the office talk on your landline phone, then transfer to your cell if you need to leave, transfer back when you return!

There are also some drawbacks to using a service like this but they can be minimized:

  • Friends and Family type calling plans on cell phones get screwed up by this sort of service. Calls from the same network pass through the GrandCentral system so they probably burn up your minutes. So, either have those people continue to use your direct cell number or upgrade your minutes!
  • The GC Terms of Service state that it is for non-commercial use only. Considering that people have jobs and are going to have the phone ring to their office I don’t know what they mean by this. But I guess just be aware of it.
  • The Web Click to Call feature may conflict with the business use terms. I’m guessing it also only works in the US.

Room for Improvement:

  • Find a way around the “Friends and Family” call routing issue.
  • For the number to truly be universal it needs to be able to accept inbound faxes as well. (They’ll probably charge for this later.)
  • I imagine they will add on optional 800 number support at some time in the future.
  • Click to Call from your address book needs to be integrated with Outlook so you don’t have to log in to the Web site.
  • How about inbound caller ID notification pop ups on my PC and perhaps a small application that sits in the system tray which gives me access to everything without visiting the Web site?

Now, they are currently in Beta with the service and you have to wait for an invitation. According to their blog it’s kind of hard to get an invite right now. But luckily I’ve been a tester for a while and I can send invites to allow you to skip the wait! All you need to do is drop me a comment below with a request for an invitation (make sure you put your real e-mail address in there).

EDIT: Folks, this service is now known as Google Voice, and I have NO more invites! So please don’t bother asking for one because they don’t exist for anyone, anywhere. You just have to wait to get it direct from Google. In fact, I’m closing the comments on this one…

Get the next post by email.

One email per post. Twenty years of this, still going. Unsubscribe whenever.

John P.

John P. is a former CEO, former TV Show Host, and the Founder and Wizard behind Texas Metal Works. You can find him on X, Facebook and LinkedIn. Feel free to send shoutouts, insults, and praise.

Other Random Posts!

237 Comments

  3. What an amazing offering. I would love an invite if you still have one available. Thanks in advance!

  6. Prety please.

    I will gladly give you a hamburger on Tuesday, for a GrandCentral invite today…

    Thanks much.

  7. I’m so excited about this service as i am a google fan i signed up for my reservation if there is any way to speed up the process please help it will be much appreciated thx

  9. If you have any GrandCentral invites I would like to have one. I am trying to combine this with MagicJack to cut TelCo costs to $0 or close.

    Thank You

  12. I currently juggle 2 mobile phones, and a home number. What a help this would be. Please send one invite if available. Thanks.

  13. With all of my traveling this would be awesome…if you come up with any more invites I would appreciate one.

  17. I’m sorry Rikki, but this service only works in the US currently. There are many people who work and travel internationally that could certainly use something like this, but at the moment I’m not aware of any service providers that can handle your needs.

    Hopefully as Google’s offer matures they will eventually integrate our communications.

    John

  18. I am from the UK, I work in the south pacific, my family are in the States, and i spend a lot of time in Australia. I carry around 4 different simcards. I AM IN DIRE NEED OF ONE SINGLE GLOBAL NUMBER , PLEASE PUT ME AT THE TOP OF YOUR LIST !!!!!

  21. I would very much like a Grand Central number. I’m hoping it’s not too late. I’m a news anchor/reporter…think this would make a great story!
    Thanks!

  22. Wow, the friends and family issue is definitely a downside, but this is UBER cool! Seems to be a natural evolution of sorts of the FCC ruling to allow users to keep their number. I hated dealing with the cell phone reps who always used the “you will lose your number” card to keep me in my plan =/

  26. To all of you that have been patiently waiting on invitations, I’ve been in contact with Linda over at GrandCentral and provided her with all the uninvited e-mail addresses up to this point.

    She is going to get you in the system for invitations, so I’m hoping you get them fairly soon (within the next day or two). If a couple of you could let me know when/if you get your invite I’d appreciate it.

    Keep your fingers crossed!

    John

  30. Never tried a service like that, although I can imagine that it would be quite convenient. I have tried out getting a free phone number from netzero that essentially adds another layer between you and others. It’s supposed to be a fake phone number that rings and then goes to voicemail. You then get the voice message as an e-mail attachment (or you can check through the voicemail itself). I thought that was a neat idea. It seems most useful for people who give out their number at bars, clubs, or other public places. However, I must admit that I don’t find myself in such risky scenarios too often.

  33. Hi John,

    This sounds like a great offer. If there are any invites left in future could you please send one my way? :)

  36. If you get any more invites I’d love one.

    many thanx in advance

    Olisch (at) gmail.com

  38. Hi. Is a service I’ve been waiting for for a long time since I’m a road warrior and need to be in touch with people all around the world.

    I’ll apreciate your invitation for a service like that.

  39. Ditto on that. Late to the party to this one but would love an invite. If anyone has an invite do pass it on. I’ll love you forever, or nearly so.

  44. Hey,

    Can I get an invite to this awesome product?

    I would so appreciate it. Doctoral student running around with a million things to do and a million people to contact.

    Ed guzman

  45. I travel all over the states and in europe does this service work outside USA as well the whole concept is exciting but goggle gets more like big brother every day. Would love an invite if any more come your way.
    guess I will just have to start behaving myself and become less of a social deviant. Cant make my mind up if this is a blow for more personal freedom or a curbing of our liberty. Great article by the way i like to keep informed.

  46. dang…well their all gone now….sorry will post if I get more invites…friends gobbled them up but John p post your email, I have one left….

  50. Very interesting concept. I have read about this and have tried getting an invite twice.
    If you have any invites left, I would appreciate having one please!

    Liked your review, has some points that I didn’t know earlier, good to know.

    Thanks!

  52. I see I’m arriving pretty late for an invite, but would love one if you happen to still have any available. Thanks in advance!

    Finn

  60. Sure I am way late but just found your site looking for GPS info :)

    then of course started reading around and saw this post very cool

    also if you do have any invites would be a big Mahalos to ya

  61. Hah, I am installing VMWare server tomorrow, to give it a test drive. I don’t think my little shop can afford the fancy version you’re playing with. :(

    I would LOVE an invite to Grand Central, if you have any left there.

    Cheers,
    Chris

  62. your blogs are very informative
    keep up the good work
    if you have any invites left
    i’m interested in one, thanks

  65. Ok gang… everyone down to Ryan should have their invitation now.

    Ryan – you can just get a OneMansBlog.com tattoo… it’s easier to spell than my name. :-)

    For those of you after this I’ll get you invites as soon as I’m able to obtain some more. I’m pretty sure I can get at least a few more within the next few days, and I’m hoping that Vincent or one of the guys at GrandCentral will be able to pull through for me with a larger number of invites to handle everyone’s requests.

    Remember to please stop back by and give your feedback after you try it out. We’re all interested to hear about the good, bad and ugly with regards to using this service.

    John

  68. This would make my life so much easier.

    Pass an invite over if you still can. I’ll get your name tattooed on me to honor you.

  69. I would like an invite also with how often my phone numbers change. Might help me some.

  74. i already have almost all the google services and would like this service…so please hook me up

  75. I’m sure GrandCentral was thrilled. I can’t wait for this to hit the mainstream market. What will they think of next!

  77. This sounds like a great service to try out. So, if you have any invites left it would be great if you could send me one. Thanks

  79. Hi,

    I have been a regular reader of your blog and it has many interesting stuff ( mostly videos)!! that video on global warning was really good.

    this is my first comment here!!..

    i would like to have a invite on this, if u have one left! i would like to try out this service.

    -p5chin

  80. Hey John,
    I too would like to sign up for an invite – not holding my breath as you may not get anymore, but thank-you for the kindly offer. I live in the UK and often travel to the US and Canada, so having one number (that won’t potentially burn up cell ‘roaming’ minutes) is a really handy idea. Heck, the call screening, making a Human give their name before proceeding is well worth the price of admission! We get lots of calls to our home and cells trying to sell us stuff that we are never going to want. The worst calls are the ones where you rush out of the shower or back from the yard, pick up the phone and… an autobot dialer connected to a call centre asking us to hang on until the next available rep! They called ME and want me to hold for THEM? Outrageous!

    I’m a fan of consolidated devices and services – as long as they work properly. I’m loving the Googs and their tools – currently I’m lovin’ their documents and spreadsheets online (but the 500KB document size limit is a bit constrictive) but it works pretty much as expected, with the functionality that 90% of people use from Word and Excel. And Maps… anyways, you can now just log into Google and all the tools that you use are accessible from one control panel. Sweet.

    I really enjoy your column – sense of humour and topics are often right on target for me – the first time I came across your blog (about 4 months ago) i took about two nights to read all your back issues! Keep up the great work!

    Cheers,
    Fanboy Lance

  81. And now I have a dilemma…what area code to choose? If this is “for life”, where do I want to be associated with FOREVER???

  83. Ok gang. Everyone on the list up to this point should have an invite. Please come back and share some feedback when you try it out!

    Also, for those coming after this post. I don’t have many more invitations left, but I have requested more from Vincent over at GrandCentral. So if you leave me a comment requesting one and I don’t respond quickly then I’ll send you one when I get more.

    John

  89. John,
    thanks for the invite.
    Logged in but service only available in Canada and USA. International being opened up later. Have requested contact from them when service available.
    Thanks again,
    keep on writing!

  91. Wow, this service sounds great. I would love to try it out if you still have invites left.

  92. Michael,

    I sent you an invite. Could one of you guys from Europe that I sent invites to please let me know if you can actually use the service over there once you get logged in? I don’t want to waste the last few invites I have if people won’t be able to use them.

    Thanks,

    John

  93. This sounds very interesting. I would like the opportunity to give it a try. Please send me an invite.
    Thanks.
    Bye the way, I really enjoy your blog and look forward to reading it daily.
    Best wishes from Berwick upon Tweed, UK

  94. Ok. I’ve sent out the invites for all the requests I received so far. Please stop back and give me your opinions on the service once you’ve had a chance to check it out. :-)

    John

Comments are closed.