RCN Business Call Forwarding: How to Set It Up and What to Check First

RCN was a regional cable and phone provider, and it is now part of Astound. That matters for forwarding instructions: support pages, account portals, and product names have moved under the Astound brand, so an old RCN guide may not match what you see today.

Astound publishes phone feature guidance that includes call forwarding options such as call forward don't answer and selective call forwarding, but that guidance is written for home phone service. It is not proof of one universal procedure for every RCN Business or hosted voice account. The exact steps depend on which product your business subscribes to.

• Check your bill or account portal for the exact product name, such as Business Phone with Call Manager or a hosted voice service.
• Look for Astound Business support rather than old RCN pages when you need current instructions.
• Do not copy star codes from a different carrier; codes are tied to a specific product and network.

Astound's legacy user guide for Business Phone with Call Manager documents two ways to forward. From the handset, dial *72 followed by the destination number to forward calls immediately, and dial *73 to deactivate. These are all-call forwarding codes for that specific product, not a universal RCN Business standard.

The Call Manager software side has a Forwarding tab with checkboxes for Busy/No Answer forwarding and Immediately Forward, plus a destination selector. You can pick a stored destination or enter a number under Other, and saved destinations can be reused later. Busy/no-answer forwarding sends calls only when your line is busy or nobody picks up, while immediate forwarding sends every call right away.

Only use these steps if your account is actually the legacy Business Phone with Call Manager product. If you have a different Astound business phone product, ask Astound Business support for that product's own instructions instead of assuming the same codes apply.

• Immediate forwarding from the handset: dial *72 plus the destination number.
• Turn forwarding off: dial *73 from the same line.
• Call Manager portal: open the Forwarding tab to set Busy/No Answer or Immediately Forward and choose or enter a destination.
• Confirm which product you have first; legacy instructions do not cover every former RCN or current Astound account.

After activating forwarding, test it from an outside phone, such as a cell phone, by calling your business number. If immediate forwarding is on, the call should ring at the destination. For busy or no-answer forwarding, the call should only move to the destination when your line is busy or goes unanswered.

Two behaviors are worth checking before you rely on forwarding. Immediate all-call forwarding means your original line will not ring at all. And forwarding can interact with other features on the same line: for example, Frontier's Unlimited Digital Voice guide notes that forwarding overrides voicemail forwarding on that product. Whether the same happens on your Astound business product is not documented in the sources here, so ask Astound Business support how forwarding interacts with your line's voicemail before you depend on it.

• Test with a call from a different phone number.
• Remember that all-call forwarding stops the original line from ringing.
• Ask Astound how forwarding interacts with voicemail and any other features on your specific product.

One option is forwarding your business line to an answering service so calls are handled when you cannot pick up. With AllDayDesk, you keep your public number: callers dial it as always, and forwarding sends the call to the service, which answers around the clock using the business information you save. Setup starts by choosing your business or entering its website, checking the details it found, hearing a personalized sample, and then choosing your phone setup. Forwarding instructions depend on your phone service, so the RCN/Astound steps above are what you would apply on the provider side.

Once connected, calls, transcripts, summaries, and bookings show up in your dashboard. New appointments go on the built-in AllDayDesk calendar by default once you have configured your services and availability, and an optional Google Calendar connection is available in Settings after you connect and authorize your account. When the service does not know an answer, a price, or an appointment slot, it takes a message instead of guessing. If you configure call transfers to yourself, you set the destination and rules in advance; pickup is not guaranteed.

• You keep your existing RCN/Astound business number; forwarding happens on the provider side.
• The sample greeting you hear during setup is a preview and creates no real booking.
• Existing appointment changes come to you as requests, not confirmed changes.
• Transfers require you to configure a destination and rules in advance.

The biggest decision is when forwarding should trigger. Immediate forwarding sends every call away from your line the moment it arrives. That fits owners who never answer this line themselves. Busy/no-answer forwarding lets your line ring first, so you can answer during the day and the service only takes over when you are on another call or do not pick up.

If you answer your own phone most of the time, busy/no-answer forwarding is usually the better fit, and the Call Manager forwarding tab supports it on the legacy product. If you want the line fully covered without ringing your phone at all, immediate forwarding is the match. Either way, confirm the feature is included on your specific Astound business product before relying on it.

• Immediate: every call forwards right away; your line stays silent.
• Busy/no-answer: you get the first chance; overflow and missed calls forward.
• Check that your product and plan support the mode you want before advertising it to customers.