[larrybud]

+1 to suggestion of VoIP type service. Also look at Callcentric and voip.ms (which are traditional sip based providers) as well as others such as Skype (which does offer a pstn number option) and google voice (even though the parent post didn’t like it)

[thfuran]

I switched to voip.ms as part of divesting myself of Google services. The webui isn't very slick but it's dirt cheap, has more features than I'll ever use, and has been reliable aside from briefly when they were being ddosed. It's also easy to add new numbers, if I decide I want a number local to somewhere else too.

The one issue I've had with it is that it doesn't accept large images (where large starts somewhere smaller than many modern phone pictures) over mms. I never really use sms/mms so I don't much care but it could be a potential problem.