I have very limited experience with it. I just signed up a few weeks ago, and sent and received one text so far. But yes, you can set it up as a seperate number on your phone. You can make and receive calls and send and receive texts. You can also do texts from your computer with it. I belong to another hobby board in my area and some people on that board swear by it and use it as their hobby phone. That way they have an anonymous number without carrying a seperate phone. As for it getting traced back to you, I'm sure it can be since you will connect it to your phone. I'm personally not as paranoid as a lot of others here. I use the same cell phone for personal, business, and hobby use. I use my real first name and have given my whole name to reputable providers. But I also am self employed and have no SO, which means I may have less to lose than others. For ne i only signed up for google voice to try it out, and for possible future use with some tofft unreviewed providers. Oh, and maybe for making crank calls LOL.