OK, OK...the topic is a little bit misleading. But it IS a free service, and it IS phone-related. There is a service that I've been a subscriber to for about 2 months called "GrandCentral." It is currently in BETA stage and was purchased by Google recently. It is invite-only, and I have several invites remaining, hence this posting.

Basically, this service allows you to consolidate ALL of your phones to one number, and perform alot of VERY convenient things. You can have ONE number ring to your cell, home, and work phone numbers, and have ONE central voicemail. Additionally, you can do cool things like say you're talking on your house phone and want to leave, you can transfer the call to your cell! You can even check your voicemail from the internet! The features are unbelievably cool, plus the bit of cache of being invited into an invite-only beta program, haha. You can also get a phone number from virtually ANYWHERE. I live in Ohio, and I have a New York City number. It'* also good for people who switch providers alot, or lose their phone service for whatever reason, and have to get new numbers. Your Grand Central number will never get taken away or change, so if your cellphone number ever changes..you just update it in Grand Central. Your number is now attached to YOU, rather than a service, place, or device. It'* really cool. Go to http://www.grandcentral.com/home/features to see everything it does. It even does things that PAY services charge you for (i.e. ringback tones, etc)

www.grandcentral.com and here is a video demonstration of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd5gHKU-qnQ

could i get an invite? What do you need? Phone number, my e-mail????

sounds pretty sweet, but I don't think it would help me out at all.

I only have 1 phone number, and I have had the same number for 8 years.

Well...then SOME of the services wouldn't be beneficial to you. But others, like ListenIn, web voicemail, and getting a number from anywhere you want would. Then again, you'd have to give everyone a new number.

My buddy has been using Grand Central since early summer for his computer repair business. It works out great for him because he gets a free number from GC that rings through to his personal cell. Costs him nothing and he can keep a business number. The only downfall that I saw with how he'* using it is that the GC number can't be converted to a land line (through SBC, etc.). GC owns the number. So, expansion from that perspective is limited.