Comment by vitovito
4 months ago
There's only a fixed amount of phone numbers, but you can gate the person behind a single number by an extension, just like businesses do.
Give out your regular number, and generate a unique extension for each business or individual.
Have an IVR, bot, or service answer the number. "Hi, you've reached blakeburch, if you have an extension number, please dial it now." Valid extensions get routed to you, invalid or expired ones go to voicemail.
Having my own extension system is interesting... I'll explore that avenue.
Minimal research says that even with restrictions on certain number combinations and area codes, there should be ~5 billion possible numbers, enough to make a virtual number system possible.