Like most new technologies, virtual phone numbers were borne out of necessity. The early users of the service were primarily business travellers who had to keep in constant contact with important clients. They used virtual numbers to forward their calls.

The technology relies on IP telephone and call forwarding in order to save callers on long distance charges. Believe it or not, a client can call any virtual number for the price of a standard local call.

Another obvious benefit of these numbers is that they are connected to the original, local number. This means that a customer can call a foreign country on a local number and think that he is speaking to someone in his own area code. As you might imagine, this technology is a favourite of companies that export jobs overseas but don't want anyone to know about it.

For instance, if a company wants to transfer its customer service department to India to take advantage of lower wages, they will almost always use virtual phone numbers. These numbers give local users the impression that they are making a local call, even though they are calling overseas.

Yes, the practice is clearly duplicitous. But if the level of service does not suffer and the company saves money, where is the harm? In the end, virtual numbers are an efficient and affordable new technology that gives companies the ability to save money in many different ways.