For the moment, I’m planning to use it for anyone I don’t want to give my home number to. (Mostly for surveys, forms, other things that aren’t necessarily tied to me but where they want a phone number.)
It could be really useful for all numbers, but it makes me nervous to use it for everything because it could tie all my numbers to numbers of people I know. My home number is also tied to my home address and to who knows what else.
Since Grand Central is now owned by Google, it means that they could have lots more info about me that they already have, which kind of squicks me out.
So:
Are you using it? (If you don’t have an account, would you use it?)
I started using it a month ago or so. After about a week of messing around with it, I started giving out my GC number exclusively. I just love all the features.
I’ve got various groups of people set up to call all or various combos of my phone numbers (work, cell, gizmo project.) We have no landline here, I have a SkypeIn number and paid for a year of SkypeOut.
I use the ListenIn, CallSwitch, and Click2Call often and really like them. I like the web button feature (here’s an example in my livejournal, with links to articles about the service), although I really have no use for it. Still neat though. I set up personalized greetings for some frequent callers (my kids, my sisters, my husband), certain greetings for co-workers, some for friends, etc.
I don’t really have any privacy concerns.
I think it’s only major drawback right now is the inability to receive text messages.
I’m not a huge text messager, but I send and receive enough to make this an issue as I still have to give out my cell #, or the people that send me text messages still have to have 2 numbers for me.
The only feature I use is to aggregate my wife’s and my phone numbers. We each have a cell phone, and we don’t have a landline. So, if family wants to call us and they don’t care who they get, or if we’ve got a business that needs to reach either one of us, we just give them our GrandCentral number.
The only thing I don’t like about the service is that you have to accept the call- it’s not as transparent as I’d like. I’d really prefer it if calls to our GrandCentral number just went straight through to our phones.
I wonder if this could solve my eternal phone problem. Here is the problem: I live in the Netherlands. My family of origin and my work are in the US. I go to the US twice a year for a total of about three or four months or so. In the US I stay with any one of my many family, which arrangements can’t really be made in advance. So if anybody from Europe wants to call me while I am in the US they first have to find me. And the folks in the US have to find me, too, since I could be at any one of a half dozen phone numbers.
So far I have been handling this by using a disposable Tracfone in the US and giving that number out, but it’s a relatively expensive solution. I could get a Worldphone or something similar but I haven’t found a plan that makes sense with roaming/international charges from US to Northern Europe.
Signing up in the US would be no problem, I expect to be there in a couple weeks. And any of my lovely sisters would do it for me anyway.
But if I understand it correctly, the problem will be that during the times I am away, my husband could never pick up the landline at home, is that right? this may not be a barrier, he doesn’t pick it up that much anyway. He’s antisocial like that.
You will run into a few issues with a Grand Central number. First off you can’t set it up from outside of North America. I suspect that means you can’t forward to an international number.
You could set it up once you got here, and have it forwarded to a whatever phone you are near.
I got a Grand Central number so my friends and family could call a local number while I am in Canada. It works great. I either have the call forwarded to my pay as you go cell, or to my office.
I am very happy with the service.