What's an affordable way to keep a couple phone numbers?
2As I'm helping to wind the office down (not a fun task, BTW), we have a couple phone numbers we need to retain and forward. I thought about a couple MagicJacks and porting the numbers over, but apparently, they suck. Porting over to cell phones is an option; if the widow has to change from Verizon to T-Mobile or AT&T based network, that's fine, but if there's another solution that'd average
Sooo ... any ideas?
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Get yourself a couple of google voice accounts maybe? I think it costs $30 to port your number.
@djslack this is what I was going to suggest.
@djslack Thanks. Just looked more into it, and it seems like a perfectly viable solution.
(Truncated in my original post was "that'd average under-$10/mo./line", which this will be.)
@djslack been using it since it was called GrandCentral... excellent service.
@djslack if they are landlines, you'll have to first port them to a cell phone (can be a pre-paid phone, no contract), then to google voice - doesn't cost much to do, just takes a bit of time
https://www.numberbarn.com/number-parking provides a mothballing serivce.
$12 a year and easy to port back out (unfreeze).
Google Voice is an option, but juggling forwarding phones (which is required) can be a hassle if you're mothballing more than a few numbers, IME.
@Pavlov Thanks. No issues with the numbers forwarding to another phone. I'll keep this in mind if other lines are to be kept, but AFAIK, it's only two numbers that must be maintained.
Or buy 2 cheap clamshells and phone cards
I use these guys: http://www.callcentric.com
$1.95 / month. Porting in our "home" number that we had for YEARS was trivial.
Lots of services and call routing options. Highly recommend.
I did the two-step home to GV port a couple of years ago. No regrets. Couple of nice features -- easy call blocking, voicemail transcripts emailed to cell phone, can turn it into a "landline" with an adapter (Obihai).
I pay $2 a month and turned my number into a voicemail only line. It then e-mails me any voicemails I receive.
@Bogie From what company?
@bdb It's a local ISP with a VoIP switch. They can only handle local (208) DIDs (numbers), though.
I have a couple numbers with Google Voice under different email addresses. This is a good solution. However a couple things to keep in mind. Each Google voice number has to be tied to an actual phone number that you own. Also, I use my main Google voice number on a daily basis. Mostly to text from my PC. I have another number that I use rarely for certain things. Google will occasionally prompt me to make sure I want to keep that number because Google doesn't think I use it enough. If you miss these notifications you will end up losing your numbers. Also, there is a website that I know that occasionally sells Oomas at a discounted price. Those are great and can have multiple numbers. You will never lose the numbers unless Ooma goes out of business. I may like this even more than GV.