Call the telephone company in your new location and ask for "business services".
What you want to do has been possible for years. Not all phone companies are well prepared or anxious to move your 'old number' to your new location.
Another possibility is to contact your current phone company and ask about having the number kept in your name and 'permanently' forwarded to your new number in S.C. This might be a reasonable cost, it might not.
3rdly, with VoIP you can definitely move your current number to your new VoIP service. This way when you make a call, it will show as the number that is familiar to the people you call on their caller ID. I provide VoIP services,
so naturally, I am quite biased here.... the company with the orange boxes that advertise on tv a lot has ALL of its 'support' provided by script readers in India. They will not listen to anything you say... they just read the script and say "... please to unplug the wonnage dewice, please to wait 2 minutes.... please to plug in the wonnage dewice. Is your telephone working now please? .... please to unplug your dsl unit, please to wait two minutes ............" I know, I went through one of these phone calls for TWO hours and they never got mine working, thats when I decided to get into the VoIP business.
Another thing I am biased about try to find a small VoIP company in your area that really wants to earn your business. There are hundreds of VoIP service providers in the USA, so this should be possible. If you cannot find one in your area, call me, I will help you start your own VoIP company. Really, I will. The only hard part is going through the tax laws in each state. This is why I only market to Florida residents, I only have one set of tax laws to deal with.
If you want to buy really cheap VoIP service, take a good look at this VoIP company and see all the features you get at their prices!VoIP can do some fairly interesting things. You can have one unlimited calling phone service for $28 a month, but have telephone numbers all over the world (for an
additional $8 to $15 each, generally, depending on where in the world). So you could have your telephone to have different ringtones (or multiple phones in your office).... so when one phone rings you answer "singledivers dot com" when you hear the other ringtone you answer "single divers dot com, Fiji office" when people call your Fiji phone number or "singledivers dot com, Bahamas office" when they call your Bahamas number.
Likewise, you can have employees all over the world. Your 'receptionist' answers the telephone "Hello, this is Singledivers dot com International World Headquarters" then when they ask for reservations, you transfer the call to your employee at home today taking care of a sick child just as if you transferred the call down the hall, and the caller never knows the difference (unless they hear the baby crying). Its the same concept as dialing a number in New Jersey and talking to someone in India.
As far as I know all VoIP companies provide
call forwarding, conference calling, voicemail, voicemail to email, redial, number block, caller ID, caller ID block etc all for free.
The
downside to VoIP is that the internet is not yet quite as reliable as POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service). There will be periods where call quality suffers. It may not happen everywhere, but keep it in mind. However, the cellphone or the POTS can be used during these periods. But heck, lower your phone bill 30% to 80%, it may be worth that risk. Another downside is that when calling 911, the call is routed based upon the information that you provide. If you do not keep this information up to date, the fire department will show up at your old address and send you a very very large $$ bill. The same is true for the employee in Montana if someone in the house grabs the VoIP phone registered at your Texas address. Always read the 911 fine print.
An upside for hotels and lawyers and others that need to track telephone usage is that you can get
your usage reports within seconds after hanging up the phone. Control what countries your children can call. Instantly track your employees calls.
And all VoIP services (as far as I know) have unlimited 'in-network' calling. Huh? You get ONE phone account (think of it as one telephone line) but with it you get 10 'virtual numbers'. Use these virtual numbers to assign to each of the telephone extensions in your home. So the extensions can call each other unlimitedly without regard to what level of phone service you have. You can also call other customers of the same company as if they were an extension. Here' is the good part..... your mother in Japan has an IP phone set up with one of your virtual numbers, your sister in Brazil has an IP phone set up with one of your virtual numbers, so it never costs the three of you a penny to call each other (or 3-way call) no matter how long you talk !
Isn't the internet great ?
Edited by Racer184, 09 January 2008 - 05:22 PM.
Ok ok it is one mile from a pretty lake and it has lots of internet access! 
