Pre-setup question re: multiple phone numbers

Asterisk Asterisk General
1

I have multiple small businesses, each with their own Google Voice number. Problem is, GV will only let me forward to a given phone number (e.g. my cell phone) from TWO GV numbers. After that, I send the GV calls to Sipgate numbers (which then forward to my cell phone & home landline.) I grabbed 3 free Sipgate numbers (back when you could), so I have a total of 10 GV numbers that can ring through to my cell phone and home/landline – but it doesn’t work very well and it’s a real pain in the neck.

Does Asterisk help me with this in any way? I mean, for 10 GV numbers, I still need 5 regular numbers no matter what, don’t I? And somehow I have to pay for those, right? My current situation costs me basically nothing beyond my cell phone bill (which I’d be paying anyway) and $30/year for my MagicJack (which works surprisingly well for me). I suppose I could just buy additional MagicJacks, but I have no idea how well that would work. Is there some VOIP provider that would sell me a block of 5 numbers for less than $150/year?

I’d really appreciate hearing from any entrepreneurs out there in a similar situation.

My goals in setting up Asterisk would be:

  1. Quick/easy, on-the-fly changes to call routing
    (My wife acts as my receptionist, but for those times when she can’t be available, it’d be nice if she could just punch *9 or something and have the calls routed directly to my cell phone.)
  2. Make outgoing calls with the appropriate business name displayed on my customers’ caller ID display
  3. See (when my cell phone rings) the caller’s caller ID - but also know which business they called (so I can answer appropriately - maybe this would be a code appended or prepended to the number - but much better would be if I could keep their number but replace their name with my business name)
  4. Ability to play prerecorded informational messages for people if they so choose
    (Press 5 to hear about…)
  5. Send/receive faxes
  6. Not have to pay too much more (for all the above) than I’m currently paying

Any and all thoughts and comments are appreciated.
And if I’ve missed an important wiki page or something that documents asterisk features and answers many of my questions, I apologize. :smile:

2

All this could be easily achieved with Asterisk. Where exactly do you need help?

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Mostly, I needed confirmation that all those things can be done. (I guess you’ve just done that but I’m not sure.) I also was hoping to get some idea of how much it was going to cost me to get a block of phone numbers, along with a recommendation for a provider.

4

Could you please comment explicitly on item #3 from my initial post? Would it really “be easily achieved” to display the caller’s phone number, but replace their name with the name of the (my) business that they’re calling?

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