But I digress. Simple answer now? Google Voice. Give you one number to direct to both your home phone and cell. You determine what hours (don’t ring my cell at night, just ring my landline, etc) and scenarios you’d like. I have mine set to ring both my desk and cell during the day for all calls. I have it set, also, for calls from my folks or my wife’s folks to come to my office, my cell, and her cell. But since she works during the day in a place where cells are taboo I have it set to NOT ring her cell during regular working hours.

Flexible, free, and very cool. People ring your new number and get all the rest. And if you change carriers and can’t port your cell number for some reason, no biggie. You make the change on your end and people still keep dialing the Google Voice number (which hasn’t changed) and they still keep reaching you!

Added bonus: voicemail transcription… free.

The HomeLink system uses bluetooth to know when your cell is at its home location and then can use an attached cordless phone within the home.

Regards,
Ash

1. The phone supports WiFi. If it does, then technically you could write some sort of program on the phone that would control calls and then forward them to maybe your computer, or csome WiFi networked phone (which I don’t think are available yet). This method first of all assumes it’s possible to write programs on the phone capable of controlling the call, and second, that the computer or device will be able to interpret what is sent from the phone. The best phone options for doing this would probably be the iPhone, some of Nokia’s, Blackberry’s, and the new G1. How the program works varies from phone to phone, so this option would be very tricky to implement.

2. The phone supports Bluetooth. In this situation, you could have a device that acts similarly to a bluetooth headset that can retrieve calls. The problem with this method is that the devices would have to be relatively close to the device. I’m not sure exactly how well the signal on bluetooth devices is, but I guess you could add a big antenna of some kind to improve the signal.

3. A variation on #1 would to write an phone app that simply figures out when a call is coming in on the phone, and then send it across the network to the computer. Then, do some sort of location-based setup so that the program communicates where the phone is in the house. I’m not sure if GPS functionality would really help here, since GPS doesn’t give extremely precise locations.

4. Go out and buy a dock that is in a central location of your house. Constantly remind yourself to put your phone back in the central location, and hopefully over time you will instinctively always know where your phone is.

Hope this information helped! Option 4 is, obviously, the easiest out of the rest. It would be interesting to try #1. I might try it when I get a G1 =)

There are a number of cordless phone systems you can purchase that are bluetooth enabled. Do a Google search for ‘cordless phone bluetooth’ and you will see a number of them. Panasonic (KX-TH1211B), AT&T (EP5632), GE (28129FE2), Vtech (LS5145) all make bluetooth cordless phones that will allow you to answer calls from (as well as make calls with) your cellular phone.

- Marc

The GE Cell Fusion Cell Manager is an example.. I think it is around $90 and available at places like Circuit City..

Is a cell phone repeater/booster available? something I can mount on my roof to improve reception anywhere in my house?

The XLink gateway is pretty good. I wouldn’t say excellent, but it keeps me from having to run around the house, yard, garage etc to find my cell phone. It rings all my extensions.

It is great to have.

Paul