AT&T's new NumberSync service aims to let multiple devices share one phone number

If you listen to technology analysts, futurists, and network executives, you'll hear a common refrain: it won't be very long until every device in your life is connected to the Internet. And not just connected with a Bluetooth tether to your already-connected phone or on a Wi-Fi network, but independently connected to the cellular networks that are all around us. But there's an inherent problem when you connect something to a cellular network: it's given its own phone number and identity, making it hard to use as an independent device from your phone. Nobody wants to give everyone they know a new phone number just to send messages from their watch. AT&T thinks it has a solution to this problem with its NumberSync service, which is being announced Oct 14 and will roll out to devices later in 2015.

NumberSync lets connected devices on your account, such as a tablet or watch, use the same phone number as your main line for making and receiving calls and sending and receiving text messages. It's essentially spoofing your number at the network level, so when you send a text to your partner from your LTE-connected smartwatch, it doesn't come from a completely strange number, but from the same 10 digits you've always used.