Employer provided new phone + number, can I keep personal # somehow?

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five_seven

Member
Jan 5, 2011
25
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0
I've had a hard time Googling for this (not sure what text string to search on) and figured it was time to seek out advice from those who may know.

  • My employer is providing me an iPhone 5 w/ Verizon which came with a new number.
  • I personally have a two-line plan with U.S. Cellular (wife and I) that has been off contract for nearly six years (I don't upgrade phones often, you see!). The phones we have don't matter. They're old, tired flip-phones.
  • My employer said/encourages me to use the iPhone as my personal phone, and I really don't want to carry two phones because the iPhone is also how I'll be on-call 24x7.
  • I'm thinking of cancelling my line with U.S. Cellular and letting the wife upgrade her phone to a smart phone of her choosing. I'll keep and use the iPhone from work. We were both in the market this year for our first smart phones, but it doesn't make much sense to me to be given a paid-for iPhone and plan and then also get a new personal phone and continue paying for two lines.

For my questions:
  1. Is there any way I can retain my personal number if I cancel my current line with U.S. Cellular? I'm not totally against losing my personal number w/ U.S. Cellular if I cancel my line with them. I'm guessing that if my employer revoked the iPhone or my employment was separated that I'd go and get a new phone and a new number with U.S. Cellular (or whomever). I've been with my employer for 12+ years with a great relationship so I'm not really worried about this fizzing out all of the sudden.
  2. The U.S. Cellular account would still be under my name but drop my line and retain my wife's line. Would this still retain my number with U.S. Cellular even if I have no phone with them to associate to?
  3. Is there any way to associate my personal number to the iPhone w/ Verizon? Only caveat is my employer expects the number that came with the iPhone to be the one they call to reach me. Can a cell phone have more than one number associated to it?
 
I

ImDonly1

Platinum Member
Dec 17, 2004
2,357
0
76
Port your personal phone number to Google Voice and then setup google voice to forward calls from that number to your iPhone?

So you will sort of have both numbers working on the one iPhone (work and personal).
You won't have MMS with google voice, but texts and calls will come through.
 
T

the DRIZZLE

Platinum Member
Sep 6, 2007
2,956
1
81
five_seven said:
[*]Is there any way to associate my personal number to the iPhone w/ Verizon? Only caveat is my employer expects the number that came with the iPhone to be the one they call to reach me. Can a cell phone have more than one number associated to it?
[/list]
Click to expand...

Why do they care what number you have? You can't have two numbers associated with one phone. If they will give on this you could port your old number to the new Verizon phone, if not then your best option is to port the old number to google voice and forward the calls to your new cell phone number
 
W

whoiswes

Senior member
Oct 4, 2002
850
0
76
GV for the win. I have my work number assigned to my cell, and my personal number has been provided by google for several years. Works like a charm, and I just switched jobs in March with no interruption to my personal service.

Another option might be porting to a prepaid number, but that's probably prohibitively expensive.

Just port to GV and be done with it.
 
F

five_seven

Member
Jan 5, 2011
25
0
0
Thanks to all the replies! I went and checked out Google Voice, and after reading many of their info pages on it I agree with you all that this seems to be the best choice. Also, my employer cares which number the phone has because they assigned the phone and have added that number to several distribution lists within the company that expect when they call it they will reach me on that iPhone.

I'm not quite ready to port over my old number to Google Voice, but in the meantime I have created a new Google Voice number to test the service with and will either add my current U.S. Cellular number to it (for their fee to keep the GV-assigned number + the porting) or replace it (with the porting of my current, U.S. Cellular number) later this month.

The really nice feature I like of Google Voice is the call screening!
 
MotionMan

MotionMan

Lifer
Jan 11, 2006
17,124
12
81
If only someone had mentioned porting the old number to Google Voice before it was too late.

Too bad.

MotionMan
 
Raduque

Raduque

Lifer
Aug 22, 2004
13,140
138
106
Google Voice numbers would be far more interesting if they were supported natively in the dialer of every Android phone.

There's too much hoop-jumping for me. I have a GV number, but I'll never give them my primary number.
 
N

NetGuySC

Golden Member
Nov 19, 1999
1,643
4
81
You could port it to an app called Line 2. That is what I did and it works well. You will receive calls from both your company cell and the app associated with your phone number. The downside is that it costs $10 per month.
 
S

s44

Diamond Member
Oct 13, 2006
9,427
16
81
Raduque said:
Google Voice numbers would be far more interesting if they were supported natively in the dialer of every Android phone.
Click to expand...
They are.

GV > Settings > Making calls > Use Google Voice to make all calls

Now every number you call through the dialer comes from your GV #.
 
TuxDave

TuxDave

Lifer
Oct 8, 2002
10,571
3
71
Or option #2:
Contact IT or whoever is in charge with the smartphone distribution and see if you can get the request in. My wife did the same and she cancelled her personal contract, uses the company phone and retains her old number.
 
Raduque

Raduque

Lifer
Aug 22, 2004
13,140
138
106
s44 said:
They are.

GV > Settings > Making calls > Use Google Voice to make all calls

Now every number you call through the dialer comes from your GV #.
Click to expand...

I did not know that. Last time I used it, you had to use the GV app to use your GV number.
 
Oyeve

Oyeve

Lifer
Oct 18, 1999
22,061
881
126
Yeah, Ive had my 212 cell # for over 10 years and I keep moving it around all the time. GV is a blessing for me.
 
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