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Show HN: Kill The Landline

killthelandline.com

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Re: Show HN: Kill The Landline

#21

Post by fratis »

w1ntermute wrote: post #15
nanijoe wrote: post #7

$10 a month just to forward calls from an old number? Why would I not just port that number to Google Voice, then forward my GV calls to my cell phone, all for a grand total of FREE?

Yep, this is a totally pointless product. It might've made sense a few years ago, but ever since Google Voice has been out, this has been possible for free.

I disagree. Nobody outside the tech community knows that Google Voice exists, let alone how to use it. This has solid branding (esp. the name) and good messaging.

The price might be a little high for what it's doing, but if the idea is to eventually phase out your landline number, this could be a good way of doing it.

Re: Show HN: Kill The Landline

#22

Post by ssharp »

nanijoe wrote: post #7

$10 a month just to forward calls from an old number? Why would I not just port that number to Google Voice, then forward my GV calls to my cell phone, all for a grand total of FREE?

You would do just that. I doubt, however, this website is targeted at the Hacker News crowd.

If my inlaws wanted to get rid of their landline and get individual cell phones and needed their old number to transfer out, they wouldn't port their number to Google Voice and then forward from Google Voice to their cell phone.

I'm also not sure if paying $10 / month is attractive to consumers, but that's just speculation!

Re: Show HN: Kill The Landline

#23

Post by dsr_ »

philip1209 wrote: post #4

Co-founder here: We are an active team at Startup Weekend Columbia. We pitch tomorrow afternoon here's more about our company: http://blog.killthelandline.com/post/32529411766/about-us We are using Tropo with Heroku for the MVP.

Tropo is driving your costs up, compared to people with real servers running SER and similar call routers.

Re: Show HN: Kill The Landline

#24

Post by techsupporter »

The site looks good and the idea is useful to me. So useful that I wanted to sign up, but I really can't stand clicking "Sign Up Now" and being told "oops, we're not ready for you." If you're not ready, don't have a sign up button.

Re: Show HN: Kill The Landline

#25

Post by rhizome »

bdunn wrote: post #16

To those of you saying "But Google Voice does this!", realize that most people outside of HN/the tech community don't know this.

Anybody who signs up for GV is asked if they want to hook up existing numbers to it. It's part of the signup process.

Re: Show HN: Kill The Landline

#26

Post by achompas »

nanijoe wrote: post #7

$10 a month just to forward calls from an old number? Why would I not just port that number to Google Voice, then forward my GV calls to my cell phone, all for a grand total of FREE?

I doubt a large portion of Kill The Landline's potential market (like, say, my parents with cell phones, an unused landline, and zero desire to mess with GV) would want to worry about doing this.

Re: Show HN: Kill The Landline

#27

Post by sciurus »

avolcano wrote: post #17

Interesting. I'm trying to get my parents to drop their Charter landline - which, yes, is $40/mo, and yes, they both have cell phones - but they haven't wanted to because it'd be difficult to get everyone to change the numbers. I think the biggest aspect of this is the "redirect to two numbers" - my parents would love that, since they would both be able to get the messages. How does it handle voicemail, though? It ca…

In general the plan is for whichever phone answers first to win. How to handle voicemail is a great question! We'll have to look at what is possible for us to implement. How would you like to see it work?

Re: Show HN: Kill The Landline

#28

Post by tylermenezes »

dsr_ wrote: post #23
philip1209 wrote: post #4

Co-founder here: We are an active team at Startup Weekend Columbia. We pitch tomorrow afternoon here's more about our company: http://blog.killthelandline.com/post/32529411766/about-us We are using Tropo with Heroku for the MVP.

Tropo is driving your costs up, compared to people with real servers running SER and similar call routers.

Running their own servers is so far out of the range of MVP it's laughable.

Re: Show HN: Kill The Landline

#29

Post by larrys »

masonhensley wrote: post #14
nanijoe wrote: post #7

$10 a month just to forward calls from an old number? Why would I not just port that number to Google Voice, then forward my GV calls to my cell phone, all for a grand total of FREE?

I dont think you can port a existing land line to google voice like you can with a mobile #. I could be wrong. Google Voice FAQ- http://support.google.com/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...

"I dont think you can port a existing land line to google voice like you can with a mobile #."

Correct.

However you can (I did) do this:

1) Move the landline to your cell phone provider (assumes you have a family plan, if you don't convert to one for the time necessary to do the other steps).

2) Once the number is at the cell phone provider you can transfer it to google voice (and get rid of the family plan if you didn't have one). Took a few weeks.

3) You can buy an http://obihai.com/ device if you want to be able to hook up a traditional POTS phone to get the calls. Or you can just make and receive calls at the google voice website.

Note: I did this with the cell phone provider being AT&T. I would assume it will work with other cell providers but it does with AT&T.

Re: Show HN: Kill The Landline

#30

Post by maratd »

masonhensley wrote: post #14
nanijoe wrote: post #7

$10 a month just to forward calls from an old number? Why would I not just port that number to Google Voice, then forward my GV calls to my cell phone, all for a grand total of FREE?

I dont think you can port a existing land line to google voice like you can with a mobile #. I could be wrong. Google Voice FAQ- http://support.google.com/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...

> I could be wrong.

You're wrong. Walk into any wireless carrier store, grab the cheapest pre-paid phone, transfer your landline # to the prepaid phone. Log on to Google Voice and now transfer your mobile number.

I did this for my parents who were still using Vonage. Works flawlessly.

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