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Ask HN: What's the cheapest way to keep a phone number and forward calls?

8 points by maxxxxx ↗ HN
I have an old business phone number which I want to keep in case somebody calls. This will happen maybe once a month or less. Certainly not worth keeping a full VOIP plan for it. I thought I could port the number to Google Voice but this seems to work only for mobile numbers. Does anybody know about a cheap service that allows me to port the number and forward calls to a new number?

13 comments

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apowell
Twilio with calls routed to the free call forwarding Twimlet. $1/number/month, plus $0.03/min. The free $30 credit will keep you going for a long time.

http://www.twilio.com/

http://labs.twilio.com/twimlets/forward

maxxxxx
I thought Twilio is for web sites that want to integrate voice services. Can I use it only for forwarding a number?
apowell
Definitely. In Twilio, you assign each phone number a URL that handles inbound calls. Create the Twimlet forwarding URL and paste it into Twilio as the "Voice Request URL". Once you do that, your calls will be forwarded.

You can provision a throwaway number on a trial account if you want to test it for free.

maxxxxx
Twilio looks pretty cool. I had only heard about it but this looks very good.

I have created a URL in the format http://twimlets.com/forward?PhoneNumber=<my number>& and entered it into my app under Voice/request URL. Option is "Post". But when I call my new number (I have created a new number with another account) the call doesn't get forwarded.

Am I missing something?

maxxxxx
Never mind. Got it. I am impressed! I could have used this some years ago for an app I was working on.
aquark
I'd go with Twilio too ... only issue is you need to have upgraded your account to port a number:

http://www.twilio.com/faq/porting

But since credit's don't expire, and you can always find another use for Twilio in the future it is a good bet.

johns
You can upgrade without paying until your balance runs low. Just set up auto-renew and you can buy a number.
pbhjpbhj
Couple of things:

* Where are you?

* Who is the current supplier (for the number/line)?

* What did they say about call forwarding?

Twilio's http://www.twilio.com/api/openvbx does some awesome stuff in this area (and they have a free trial) but I suspect it's massive overkill for what you want.

maxxxxx
Right now I am with VIPYourLife. Their cheapest plan is 14.97/month. I can forward the calls from there but since I don't use anything else I hope I can get away cheaper than this.
ednc
I'm using number garage for this. It is $9.99 a month, but I would love to find a cheaper alternative since I get just a call or two a month on the number. http://www.numbergarage.com/
maxxxxx
The Twilio approach other people have described here works. I haven't got my phone number ported yet but with a test number it works great.
jaz
I use Voip.ms for this purpose. I had a number through AT&T, which I then ported over to these guys for $25. I then set up call forwarding to my primary phone, which costs $0.0205 per minute.