I want a phone number that can forward voice, sms, and mms to an arbitrary US smartphone with any carrier?

I am leaving the US for 6 months and will give up my mobile number of the past 5 years because Cingular requires an active account to keep a number. I have given out that number to hundreds of contacts. I want to pay for a virtual number that I can give to all my contacts and be able to use for the rest of my life. i.e. just like owning my own domain name and domain email address. I just point the virtual number to all the future mobile phone carriers that I may use. (example: Verizon does not work in my house, so I presently use Cingular but that may change when I move. or I may live outside the US again at some point. ) I have a number with Gizmo Project's Callwave forwarding that is almost perfect, but it cannot handle SMS or MMS. I need to have text messaging in addition to voice. I need my friends to be able to call and sms me from their US mobile phones.

Is there a solution out there?

Thanks,

Ed

you should be able to sign up for Vonage, and have your cingular number rolled over. Then you can forward that to any other number you want, or have a soft phone so you can check your voicemail on your laptop and make calls with a headset on your laptop.

SunRocket appears to be $10/mo with no activation fee, no minimum term of contract and no hardware to buy. That is the cheapest I have found so far. Also, call forwarding is free for that price. Report It

I already have a Gizmo Project CallWave number for $4/mo. That service forwards calls to a Gizmo softphone and also to any other phone number I give it. It also takes voicemails and turns them into wav files and emails them to me. Report It

So, combining the two service for $14/mo, I keep my old number and have the ability to do free voip calls and receive all voice mails while I travel abroad. That's a pretty sweet deal. Report It

I could also forward to a skypein number. Skype is more ubiquitous, but also costs more for the voicemail and skypein number. Report It