Adding a 2nd number to a cell phone

J-mans Dad wrote:
You can try Google Voice and forward a spoofed number to your current phone

That's what I do. It works great and it's free.

I have numbers with Verizon, Phone Power, and Google Voice that I answer on one cell phone. My wife has her own Google Voice number that forwards to her Verizon numbered cell phone. Sometimes we have all five numbers going to one phone or the other.

GordonThree wrote:

Is Google giving out free numbers again? I thought they had stopped that. Tried to sign a friend up a few months ago and couldn't find where to get the free number.

I signed up for GV as a beta tester, maybe 8 years ago? I love the service.

I too signed up as a beta tester and I seem to recall I had invites to give out to people for numbers, but now I don't have the option of getting a number, so I guess it is one per Gmail account.

I just checked and you can get a number. First log onto a Gmail account and then go to https://www.google.com/voice. It will detect you do not have a voice account and take you to a setup area. On the bottom left click Get a Voice Number and then accept the terms and conditions and go from there.

Dave

In the early days of cell phones the phone would support 2,3,4,5 numbers.. This was because people moved around and you had to pay Roaming charges, So if you were from say Detroit, and spent a bunch of time at your company's Chicago office, you could double subscribe (Detroit and Chicago) for less than you could pay roam fees.

I suspect the phones can still do it.

Plus today most all accounts have call forwarding.. With Call forwarding you can set up a number, and set it to forward to another number, and then you can have dozens of numbers all of which ring on the same phone.

Thanks for the replies and suggestions.

dcg9381 wrote:

J-mans Dad wrote:
You can try Google Voice and forward a spoofed number to your current phone

It's not a spoof, it's a forward... Easy (free) way to get two numbers.

Is Google giving out free numbers again? I thought they had stopped that. Tried to sign a friend up a few months ago and couldn't find where to get the free number.

I signed up for GV as a beta tester, maybe 8 years ago? I love the service.

I need to look into some of this myself... My live alone neighbor gets his house calls and his cell phone calls through his tablet/cell phone all the time...

Thats a pretty neat thing to have if you live alone...

Roy Ken

As long as you have data service, any of the IP systems will work.

Skype is the most well known but there are plenty of options: For example, we have a Skype phone number. Works like any other phone number. We can call out and others can call in. Doesn't matter where we are. We've used it around the States, across Europe, the Middle East and India.

Your phone can still be used with it's number and the Skype number. If you need more numbers it can be done.

A different alternative is some phones will accept multiple sim cards each with their own cell company number. These are handy if you travel say between the USA and Europe. You get a USA and a European Sim card and just turn on the one that corresponds to your location. It's not critical as you can switch out the cards on standard phones but saves the hassle of keeping track of the tiny little cards. You could use these to run a separate personal and work phone but really more complication than just getting an IP number.

The phone's Number Assignment Module, or NAM is what contains the data relating to the phone's own number. Most phones have at least two NAMs, but usually only one has been activated. You can often put a second number into a single phone, but most sales people don't know about it and would rather sell you new equipment.

I'm pretty sure that any of the major cell carriers can arrange a second number to ring in on your existing phone.