As we give up land-lines for cell phones, there’s still one useful purpose for the plain-old telephone:  providing a number for the entire “household”.

There are a bunch of cases where a household number is needed:  giving an emergency contact number for school/camp/etc., having a contact to give the power company/cable company/bank, etc.  And even mundane cases as having a number your kid’s friends can call, before they have cell phones of their own.

Google Voice is close to providing this, but seems more focused on the individual than the household.  I want a simple menu tree (“Press 1 for Andy, 2 for Kellie, etc.” that routes incoming calls to individual cell phones, inboxes, etc.  I want to transfer calls between cell phones, just like I transfer a call at home by having my daughter pick up the phone.

AND, this should be part of my cell phone provider’s “family plan” (I’d pay extra for it).  They could make it stupid-easy by porting existing analog lines when people sign up.

Why not?