Ting was a great deal, comparatively, when they were new, because there were so few competitive MVNOs, and almost none of them let you bring over existing Sprint phones.
Now that services like Republic (and others) have MUCH broader phone offerings, their cheaper service couples really nicely with picking up deeply discounted phones during sale periods. (i.e. picked up a B&H offer about a year ago that was stupendously good)
Per line, Republic will hit you for $15 (unlimited talk + text) and sells you 1Gb data in $5 increments.
With a bunch of lines, and very low use, you might still come out ahead with Ting, but with even moderate use, Republic gets a lot cheaper pretty quickly. (and there are competing services that are comparable, or even cheaper, depending on how you use them and what phones you might already have)
Definitely a good move in your case, but it would add a step in the case of many other deals. For instance, my last three cell phone deals required a port-in to get the deal. If I had google voice and didn’t want to port-out of it, I would have to add the step of getting a number from a carrier (which costs money) in order to port-in for the deal.
What do you do for outgoing calls? Using Hangouts & let it go over data, or use GV app that calls you; or is there a better way now? (Last time I looked, the 1st way had inconsistent quality, and 2nd was not that convenient)
For Android it is seamlessly built in. You select what outgoing number you want the regular dialer (cellular) to use the first time you set up GV. After that it uses your GV number anytime you make a call.
For iOS I’m guessing you have the issues of the GV app. I wouldn’t recommend.
I have Android, Galaxy S* - various versions used in my household. We use the default Samsung Phone app - are you using some other dialer? Don’t think Samsung’s dialer integrates with GV that way. I also did the GV-Hangouts integration some time back…
Thanks, I didn’t know I had to install the GV app to hide my “real number”. I’ve always had GV forward calls to my cell. But when I make a call, they would see my real number and then I would have some explaining to do. Or, I get unwanted calls to my real number, which was the point of having GV in the first place.
Yes, answering both you and @olegos here, the Google Voice app is the key (download it from the play store). Then when you set it up the first time select if you want to have it prompt you before each call, use for all calls and use for international calls.
AFAIK it works with the samsung dialer. There’s not harm in trying it out with a throwaway GV number attached to your gmail account, you can just uninstall google voice app to go back to your regular cell #.
That Mint Sim rate ($15/mo for talk/text/2GB) requires you buying a 12-month plan, if you don’t want to switch numbers everytime you re-up the 3 month promo rate.
At their minimum, they require a 3 month plan commitment that prices out to 23/mo for that level of service, after a promo period at the price you quoted.
Has an edge of Republic if you want to commit to that, though, I guess.
(your middle-man “real” phone number at Google Voice has a non-zero cost, though, doesn’t it? Haven’t looked into that service in awhile, but it used to be $3-$5/mo to claim and retain a number)
Unless they offer another service, I believe GoogleVoice (GV) numbers have always been free, going all the way back to the GrandCentral days. I currently have multiple, free GV numbers that I use primarily for Craigslist and Letgo. Some of them are 5+ years old and haven’t cost anything, other than Google listening in and adding to their database of an unemployed cowboy in NYC.
All I can think of is maybe you looked into a VoIP provider paired with Google voice, so you could use Google voice with a regular phone handset (like to replace a home phone) and not forwarded to another phone. I know I looked into that at one point.