I Got Phones, in Different Area Codes
| Friday, October 13th, 2006 | --Sean |
I'm not sure how this exactly works in practice, but it sounds plausible and pretty neat, so here goes.
Yahoo! Messenger offers a Phone In feature, where you can reserve a phone number for $2.99 per month (or $29.00 for a year) and have all incoming calls routed to your Messenger client. If you're online, your computer will ring and you can...er, pick it up and start talking (getting a headset is recommended over holding your monitor up to your ear); otherwise, the call will go to your voicemail and you can check that whenever you get reconnected. Sounds good so far.
Here's the sneaky part: you can select your own phone number, including area code. For the US, we cover around 60 of the 308 area codes available. So, if you have relatives, close friends, or just some guy who won't stop calling you living in one of those 60 area codes, you can pick a number from that area code and then all of their calls to you will be local. Even though they're actually not! Will the wonders of the Internet never cease?!
That's how the hypothesis goes, at least. If anyone wants to give me $3, I'd be glad to test it out. And if anyone wants to give me $10, I will gladly also buy you a cookie for your troubles!