This home phone, in return, is routed via Google Voice. If you get a call from another 360 number, namely, (360) 818-4026, then that's Google Voice.
My old 617 and most 603 numbers will route directly to Google Voicemail. This is because many people call me at 3am my time (3pm their time) with silly questions ("my butt is itchy. should I scratch it or not?"). There is a message directing them to this site. I have a clock to help people figure out the local time. But a handy rule of thumb for Asia and India is roughly 12 hours. So simply switch AM to PM and vice versa.
One of my phones will be completely dormant, and not have voicemail or anything. Sorry for the inconvenience, but otherwise I get charged a lot. I use a bare-bones provider which I like, but that's the limitation they have. This site is to help make up for that. :)
Finally, we will have a variety of local SIM cards which work very well. We use Google Nexus 4 phones, which should eat anything. However, we are packing a SIM-cutter, to turn normal SIM's into mini SIM's. That should all work fine.
Each of these pieces we've used before, just not all at once. And we were very disorganized about disseminating the info. So toddbrennan.com was born for my parents...but maybe some of you techies will like to play and follow along too.
Happy Phone Hacking!
Todd