Do other people evaluate the potential lock-in before signing up for something like this? This service seems great as long as you continue to use it. My fear is that I sign up, port my number, give it out to everyone like the site suggests, and love the service only for this startup to disappear in X years. The phone number used is basically poisoned and I would either subject myself to unwanted calls after porting it elsewhere or be forced to get a new number. That always is the problem with these "run your life through us" startups, what do I do if you fail?
Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number
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Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number
#12I've been using very similar features of Google Voice for several years and I have to say it's been GREAT . I can't imagine going back to a regular number. I sincerely hope Phone Janitor can compete in that space, I'd love to see what improvements can be made and what new features may result from the differing perspectives.
You can filter calls in Google Voice?
Yes! And it can be tied into your contacts list.
I can set it so that Family always gets through. Other groupings can be created and customized, like Friends, Coworkers, Acquaintances, etc. Each can also get their own voicemail greetings.
People not in my contact list will be answered with an automated greeting asking them to announce themselves, which I will hear and then have the option to pick up or send them to voicemail.
There's a feature that lets me dial a number on my phone to record the conversation, which also announces that the conversation is being recorded so as to adhere to various local laws.
Plus there's automatic voicemail transcriptions powered by Google's awesome voice recognition software, which just got a 49% boost in accuracy in an update this week.
I also haven't had to worry about transferring numbers as I switched carriers. I just let the carrier give me whatever number they want, and when people dial my Google Voice number it's automatically forwarded. I can even set it to forward to multiple numbers simultaneously, making it so I can even answer my "cell" using my desk phone at work during work hours.
Again, I sincerely hope Phone Janitor can compete with all that. I think competition has been sorely lacking in that space, and I'm eager to see what improvements it will bring to bear.
Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number
#13I've been using very similar features of Google Voice for several years and I have to say it's been GREAT . I can't imagine going back to a regular number. I sincerely hope Phone Janitor can compete in that space, I'd love to see what improvements can be made and what new features may result from the differing perspectives.
I love GV, started with many years ago, but found it limiting (hence the push to Phone Janitor). Long-term plans depend on user desires, but right now you can do this on Phone Janitor, can you on GV? http://i.imgur.com/HTnJ7FB.png
I would legitimately like to know if I'm missing that kind of flexibility in GV.
Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number
#14I like the control. I wouldn't use it. Why? The CEO of PhoneJanitor is no longer reachable by a bunch of people in ways that I find useful. The associated at the VC firm that wants to follow up on funding this company? Denied. The CVS courtesy number reminding him his prescription is ready for pickup? Never gets through. His wife borrows a friends phone after hers dies? Can't even leave a voicemail. It's one way to d…
Presumably you can always just give important people your "real" number like you already do.
Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number
#15I've been using very similar features of Google Voice for several years and I have to say it's been GREAT . I can't imagine going back to a regular number. I sincerely hope Phone Janitor can compete in that space, I'd love to see what improvements can be made and what new features may result from the differing perspectives.
I love GV, started with many years ago, but found it limiting (hence the push to Phone Janitor). Long-term plans depend on user desires, but right now you can do this on Phone Janitor, can you on GV? http://i.imgur.com/HTnJ7FB.png I would legitimately like to know if I'm missing that kind of flexibility in GV.
That sort of feature is available in GV, though I think that Phone Janitor is more flexible in the way it's structured.
Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number
#16What about calling out? I know with GV you can dial your GV number to dial the number you actually want to call (So the recipient sees your GV number in their caller ID). It was a little cumbersome, but it worked. Does PJ have something like this?
Good question. I think eventually it's a given probably using your data connection or any SIP phone or soft phones we might provide, but not yet, no.
We're not sure of the value add here and it's a lot more work to get happening (and expense of development). If there's user demand we'll obviously do it, but so far feedback has been requests for SMS and MMS support (we're ready when our providers are, which they say should be later this year, or we'll move providers to providers that are).
Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number
#17Is it safe to presume that the service is restricted to the US?
Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number
#18Do other people evaluate the potential lock-in before signing up for something like this? This service seems great as long as you continue to use it. My fear is that I sign up, port my number, give it out to everyone like the site suggests, and love the service only for this startup to disappear in X years. The phone number used is basically poisoned and I would either subject myself to unwanted calls after porting i…
That's a fair reluctance and I can't take it away because at the end of the day you'll just have that lock-in with anyone. Such is the nature of telco lines. I have the same problem (having carried my home phone line through multiple stacks).
What I can say is that I can cover costs out of pocket every month indefinitely (because each user covers their telco costs of that line, I'm just covering infrastructure) and my hosting fees are easy to cover even if we have no users.
We're probably not a typical startup in that sense. We have sustainability and independence in mind. At this point the only thing investors could offer us is the ability to grow faster. An important thing, but I like giving stability its own rights, too.
Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number
#19Don't some VOIP services offer slightly less powerful versions of this? The one I used to use (Primus Canada) allowed me to set call treatments (with a limit of 50, but that was plenty for me). Some of the options included send to voicemail, forward, hang up, etc. and offered some time-of-day rules too.
It's the one big feature I miss after switching to Ooma. All I want is to direct anyone not in my contacts to voicemail by default, and add exceptions, and I can't do that. :(
Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love GV, started with many years ago, but found it limiting (hence the push to Phone Janitor). Long-term plans depend on user desires, but right now you can do this on Phone Janitor, can you on GV? http://i.imgur.com/HTnJ7FB.png I would legitimately like to know if I'm missing that kind of flexibility in GV.
That sort of feature is available in GV, though I think that Phone Janitor is more flexible in the way it's structured.
I really like your having exposed me to more feature overlap there. Some things I didn't know about GV have been learned, thank you! I'm going to make some notes about things I like and improvements we might get to incorporate in further development.