

Ask HN: What do you use as a startup for your business phone lines? - fourstar

To have a reachable number somewhere, I&#x27;m looking into either Twilio or Google Voice. Problem with Google Voice is that I believe I need a phone associated with the number (and I already use as GV number for my primary phone number).<p>What are others using? Ideally I&#x27;d like to just have a nice answering system with a place people can call for support and as a means to look more legitimate.<p>Thanks.
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seven
I don't run a startup, just a one man show.. but anyway:

I use sipgate.de for access to the public phone system. I connect to them via
asterisk which connects to some other PBXes and my devices. Whenever somebody
calls my german line (or my extension at an other PBX), the call ends up in my
asterisk. I try to ring my mobile first. If this is unsuccessful, I tell the
caller via recording that I will try some other devices. If that fails, the
caller can leave a voice mail and I get a notification via email. (xmpp
soon..) My setup is still missing caller-id filtering fun, but it was easy to
build and runs stable since a few month. If you have a server somewhere,
perhaps a simple asterisk with a sip provider is all you need. I can't wait
until I find a usable sip client that supports zrtp on my android. I have high
hopes for jitsi. ([https://jitsi.org/](https://jitsi.org/))

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logn
[https://ringcentral.com/](https://ringcentral.com/)

Twilio isn't bad but I didn't want an API and full programmatic control. Like
you I just wanted out-of-the-box features that work. RingCentral gives you
ability to have toll-free numbers, voicemail, call routing, call recording,
office hours, fax (but no SMS). You can have up to 999 extensions (users) for
no extra cost. If you have a cell or landline currently, RingCentral is pretty
cheap because it forwards calls seamlessly and you don't pay for any minutes
(and you can dial out from that external phone too, by initiating the call
from their app which calls you first).

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olivierpailhes
You can try [https://aircall.io](https://aircall.io). Should meet your need.
Still in private beta (free by the way). 2 YC startups of current batch are
trying it right now :-)

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johnmurch
Checkout [http://grasshopper.com/](http://grasshopper.com/) \- I used their
888 number to forward to my phone and then my cofounders phone if I don't
pickup. Worst case - they save the message and I can call them back. Highly
recommended

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gregcohn
We use Burner ([http://brnr.me](http://brnr.me)) for various individual and
company phone numbers.

Dogfooding FTW!

