So it looks like work is going to give me an iPhone (yay) but that they won't transfer my current number, which used to just be my personal number and that I've had for years, to it (boo). It's probably a good wake up call -- if the number is important to me (which it is), I should have it under my own control.
Here's what's important to me:
- I want to maintain my current phone number -- it's on business cards and headshots and so on and with the kind of odd jobs I do it's good for 4-year-old contacts to still be able to find me.
- I get texts as well as calls (so some sort of voice-mail only service probably won't work for me).
- I don't really want to carry two phones.
I'm not sure there's a perfect solution, but so far the best I can come up with is to port the number to a cheap service and then forward the number to my new work phone (so that I don't have to carry two phones) and then just check texts on the old number every now and then. So I guess I'm looking for cheap cell phone service that lets me call forward and, hopefully, on which texts aren't too pricey. Any better suggestions or do you know of a good service like I've described before I just start pricing it out everywhere?
Update: I went with Virgin Mobile. We'll see how this works out.
Ben Waldie
If you haven't already, you may want to check out Grand Central. The main purpose of this service is to give you a single phone number for life. They won't allow you to port over your existing number yet, but they claim this option will be coming soon.
http://www.grandcentral.com/
Fuzzy
Unfortunately, Grand Central is a) in a closed beta now, so they're not handing out new numbers and b) yeah, can't port an existing number, which is currently the whole point of the exercise. I suppose if I was going to rip the bandaid off and switch to a new number, a Grand Central number would be a good one to switch to. But I can't even do that at the moment (see A, above). But thanks for the suggestion :-)
Fish
We've been playing with Allvoi.com, and although it's not a cellular carrier, they do have an option to port over a phone number and to forward the phone. Worth a shot.
Fish
We've been playing around with Allvoi.com recently. It does have the option to port a number and to forward it, but it's not a cell carrier. They have a money-back guarantee, so it's at least worth a shot.
Fish
Oops, double post. Sorry.