GrandCentral offers relief from the phone fatigue experienced by those of us with too many phone numbers. The service assigns you an overarching phone number that you keep for life, and that will ring all your separate phone lines at once so you can never miss a call.

My question: Why?

Frankly, if you’re still carrying a wireless phone, a primary landline, secondary landlines at vacation homes, a business line… You need to cancel most of those accounts. For all the money you’re spending on those separate lines, you can slim down to just a go-everywhere wireless phone with unlimited minutes, and be done with all the hassle. If you must keep a landline as insurance, fine — but you can do that for pretty cheap. Two numbers or less obviates the need for something like GrandCentral.

The “phone number for life” idea isn’t new. AT&T rolled out the (700) area code back in 1983, and it was intended for much the same market: On-the-go go-getters who moved around a lot. This was well before the explosion of multiple personal telecom options, of course; and somewhere along the way, the (700) code was repurposed.