Imagine having one telephone number that will ring your PC at home or work, mobile phone or land line. Answering the call is easy at whatever location is most convenient and the caller has no idea where you're answering the call - maybe in your car, maybe from a WiFi enabled laptop in a distant country. Now imagine that you can answer the call at your desktop computer and then transfer it mid-call to your cell phone with the push of a button (or vice versa).

No need to imagine any longer because today we're announcing Area775 - an innovative service from SIPphone that combines the flexibility and cost efficiency of VoIP (Voice over IP) with the ubiquity of the mobile and land-line world. Area775 provides a free US telephone number that you can link to a traditional phone number and any PC. You can then use this as your primary number to receive calls from any phone.

Take a look at what features Area775 offers

When someone dials your number, your computer (or computers) will ring along with whatever phone number you designate. (For $3.95 per month you can select a different area code than the free area775.) We call this Dual Ring. You will see caller ID on your PC and phone and can answer the call from either location.

Another unique feature for all Area775 numbers is the option to screen calls - similar to how a home answering machine works. On either Gizmo Project or your phone, when you answer the call the caller won't hear you pick up. Instead they will hear a voicemail greeting as if you did not answer. If the caller leaves a message, you will hear it as they are speaking in real time. To speak with them you can tap the #1 key and you will be immediately speaking with the person. If you do nothing, it will be a typical voice mail experience, and the resulting message will be sent to your email address as an audio attachment.

Perhaps the most amazing part of Area775 is the ability to transfer calls during a conversation. At anytime during a call, tapping the #2 key will seamlessly transfer the call to the other dual ring location without the caller being able to detect the transfer. For example, you might take a call at your PC, but then later realize you need to drive somewhere. Just click the #2 key and the call will be transferred to your mobile phone. At my house, the cell phone coverage is awful. So I can take a call on my cell while driving home and then once home transfer it to the SIP phone at my house. There are many other features that your typical phone doesn't offer that you can read about at Area775.com, complete with an informative flash video.

What excites me most about Area775 is that consumers are gaining more control over their voice communications. They decide where to receive calls (PC, WiFi phone, mobile, land line). They decide who can call them and who they will talk to and how they'll get notification and voicemail. They can switch wireless providers without losing their number simply by changing the dual-ring location. (I'll use this next week when I'm in Europe - where my Verizon phone won't work - by switching temporarily to another mobile phone, but callers will never know.)

We're moving to a new era of VoIP. The first wave was all about free or cheaper calling. But since voice calls are just another form of data traveling along the net, eventually all calls will be free just as all email messages or IM messages are free. The long-term impact of VoIP is shifting power towards consumers so you have more control over your calling environment.

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