Tech Thursday: VOIP To Replace Our US Mobile Numbers

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I wrote this months ago and haven’t gotten around to posting it.  I have a few more tech move discussions I would like to get to.  Hope to make time to write them.

As part of our planning to move to London we had to figure out how we were going to keep in touch with people in the States. That meant what level of the presence we were keeping in the United States while we were gone.

We didn’t have a home phone number that we shared with anyone so keeping that wasn’t an issue. It was really just for our intercom in our apartment. Once we moved we were able to grid it.

M and I used our mobile numbers for texting and calls so we wanted to keep them. We were going to push as many people to use Apple Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and similar apps however for those that do not have access to (or know how to use) those systems we wanted our old US mobiles.

M’s use case was really to keep her number only in case people wanted to call. For me I also wanted to be able to keep the accounts open that require a mobile phone for verification.

I spent a lot of time researching what the cheapest most reliable option for us to use to simply keep in touch with everyone in cases they do not have

For the simply keeping in touch with people after we leave I did a lot of research and ended up with a voice over IP service I’ve been using for years. I simply took both of our mobile numbers and ported them over to VOIP.MS. our quasi-home phone was a DID on the service for years. I also had other numbers for various things on the service. Sending and receiving calls have been pretty seamless over the years. Their price is also super cheap since you can get a pay-as-you-go plan. Each number is about one dollar per month plus usage.

The porting process to VOIP.MS took a few weeks. That is the porting system’s issue not theirs.  Other than how long it took the process was seamless for both numbers. I ported mine over in December right before we left. I kept using my work mobile during the few days there was a gap when my service ended and the number moved to VOIP.MS. for M since she did not have a work phone we ported her number in January. The hardest part about this whole process was porting her number since T-Mobile made us jump through hoops to unlock the number for porting. Even though we had paid off her iPhone a year ago they still kept phone locks and we didn’t figure that out until after we ported the number away from T-Mobile and tried to use a local Sim card in the UK.

The only challenging part of staying in touch using these US numbers is texting.  People that have iPhones can keep texting us if they know our email addresses.  Anyone who only had our number or use Android would have that message turned into an email now.  We don’t really see them so basically texting to those old numbers are useless. So basically we can receive phone calls. It’s been a minor annoyance every once in a while when someone tries to contact me hasn’t updated my contact details that I sent out listing my local number. For me that hasn’t been a major issue. For M I don’t think it has been a problem at all or she’s just not realizing people are trying to get her.

Slightly more complicated a problem is having a number that receives SMS short codes. This is required for services like Google or your bank to send you verification codes. What I learned is most voice over IP providers do not support them very well. After a lot of research I found one company Line2 who supported them. They published a list of all the codes they know to be working okay into their system. They also said they would work with you if you had a problem with another provider that’s not listed. A brief search of their list showed me that they covered most if not all of the companies that I would receive SMS’s from. Unlike VOIP.MS they are not cheap. One line costs $10 a month. With that plan however I did get unlimited calls and texts. Not that I use it. It feels expensive however in the end it was cheaper than buying the cheapest mobile phone plan and simply not use it except for verifications.

I kept two numbers for me. One for personal communication and one for the SMS short code verifications. That was deliberate. VOIP.MS is very flexible in how I can route calls so I keep my personal number with them. The client I use will allow me to do call recording, change my caller id, route to different places with a lot of granular control.  Line 2 the provider I use for SMS short codes only lets you use their client or a basic call forwarding.

Overall i am very pleased with both serviced. Line2 is relitivly expensive however it was cheaper than some other service providers i looked at. Their recievibg SMS Short codde options also seems better than most other solutions out there. i would (and have) reconend either provisers to anyone looking.

W Sister Short Aye Aye Captain

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One night near bedtime I  asked A something.  I cannot even recall what it was.  Her response was “OK Captain”.

I asked “why am I a captain?”

Her response was “You have a beard.”

I asked “What?”

She said “Captain’s have beards’s”.

Now she is walking around saying Aye Aye Captain.

For the record I do not have a beard.  I haven’t shaved in a few days since I have been working from home and simply didn’t want to shave.  It is much more growth than I typically have.   Just no way a beard.  This may be her subtle way of saying I should shave.  All the ladies in the house apparently do not like me with stable.

Priority Boarding According To RyanAir

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What feels like a lifetime ago (1999-2000) I used to travel full-time for work. Traveling that much got me slightly jaded on travel in general. Not the actual seeing new places. The process of getting from point A to point B. I grew particular in certain things that I like and try to make sure that there is a bare minimum of comfort when traveling.

One of those things is getting an assigned seat. The first time I flew Southwest I was completely confused even though I had boarding group 1.

In January we took a trip to Italy. We had never had the privilege of flying Ryanair before. We didn’t want to pay for checked bags. We didn’t have enough stuff to warrant the need for it anyway. With Ryanair however you cannot simply bring carry-on bags either. That’s an extra charge. Since we wanted to bring In bags anyway we paid for priority boarding. The bags in the cabin came with that purchase. Since we went for a week two carry one was fine. The girls luggage is an even that big. If we needed more stuff we could’ve simply brought a bigger bag instead of their little luggage.

What we didn’t realise was that half of the plane gets “priority boarding”. While standing in line for 20 minutes waiting for priority boarding to start I counted at least 50 people ahead of us. And we were not at the back of the line. I get the buying of carry-on bags. I don’t agree with it however I understand that decision. What I don’t understand is if you sell priority boarding and  a huge percentage of people by how is that a priority? Basically were paying so were not last. Yet it’s nowhere near what I would consider “priority”‘s.

This was the first phone lesson we learned flying RyanAir. The next one was there was no jet bridge and we had to walk out onto the tarmac and then back onto the plane. Then we arrived in Italy the shuttle bus that we had to squeeze onto to get to the terminal was just icing on the cake. I don’t need to fly business class however this was kind of less than what I would expect for basic service. I wouldn’t even say our tickets were that cheap.

We decided to try to avoid them in the future. Unfortunately as of  when I am writing this post we have another holiday planned with flights from them. In that instance the tickets were cheaper than others yet not cheap. Since the flights only about an hour we decided to just deal with it.

Welcome to Rome

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Knowing you are blatantly being ripped off by the airport cab guy but don’t care since you have two cranky kids in a foreign country. Priceless, or really just the €10 extra I was being charged.

Its Been a Year

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Time really does play tricks on you.  On one hand it feels like forever since we got to London.  On the other hand sometimes it feels like we just got here.  Today marks a year since we arrived in London.  A year ago we were leaving the freezing cold to the great unknown of another country.  We said goodbye to family for our great adventure.  Today my sister and family are here visiting for the holidays.   Both M’s parents and my mom have visited at least once.  The girls are adjusted and thriving in their new schools and making new friends.

Overall its been an amazing journey.  It hasn’t been easy all the time.  As of now it has been totally worth it!  Here is to year 2 in the United Kingdom.

So You Want To Move To Another Country Part Whatever: You Need Credit

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I have generally been pretty good with my credit. I pay all my balances off every month and my US credit has been excelent for years.

I knew when coming to the UK that my credit doesn’t carry over. I also learned that I might be in the lucky position to be using services from companies that would transfer my credit to their corresponding divisions in the UK.  That is a perk of working with a multi national organisation.

My usage of American Express cards is measured in decades. It makes me feel old. I also remember fondly that my dad thought it was amusing that I had an American Express Gold card in college. He gave me one on his account for any emergency purchases. Thinking about that, it might be its own post at some point. Needless to say after college an American Express card was one of the first cards I got. I was thankful to find out that American Express will issue me cards in the UK based off of my history with them in the US.

Process to get my American Express card in the UK was seamless. I filled out an online form and the cards arrived at our house in London. The cards were literally waiting for us when we got to our house. I cannot say enough nice things about the process from American Express to do this. In this situation membership does have its privileges. Pun intended. The only thing I would comment about my experience with American Express isn’t really a negative since I got something for free. I was going to downgrade one of my cards in the US however I got hard sold into not doing it. They basically gave it to me for free however it’s yet another conversation I  have to have with them later this year. I know they’re expecting me to forget and just pay for it. Be warned Annex I will not forget to call to downgrade that account.

The thing with American Express is even in the United States it’s not excepted everywhere. I heard mixed opinions from British friends on how widely accepted AMEX was. My experience is it is generally accepted the vast majority of the time we go to use it. Is it less widely accepted as in the states? I don’t know, maybe. Either way having it is your only card does limit you. Even in the US I would always have a backup just in case.

That leads me to trying to get a card from my bank. When it became pretty apparent we were going to move we opened an account with a multinational bank that was one of the few that have accommodations for people in my situation moving to new countries. I am writing about my experience in getting accounts created them in another post, so I won’t go into that here. I did sign up for a MasterCard in the United States specifically so I could build up credit history bank so I could transfer that history over to their UK division.

Once living in the UK I waited several months to apply for the credit card via my bank. I delayed partly because I wanted to see how far we can get with AMEX. I also was pretty lazy. I feel that all the forms to apply and then didn’t hear anything for several weeks. Then I get a letter saying I been declined. I was a little surprised. On one hand I do not keep very much money in the UK branch of this bank. I do my day-to-day banking with an online only bank. I didn’t think that would matter since I have a decent amount of funds in other locations with them. The way their whole system works is having funds at one location counts towards the other.

I was rather annoyed by being declined. I was also curious why. I called them to ask and got a bunch of runaround. Finally they filed an official appeal on my behalf. They told me that would be something like 6 to 8 weeks before they got back to me with an answer. Over a month later I got a letter telling me that three weeks after that they should have a response to me. When I finally got a written response all it said was I was declined and they couldn’t really say specifically why. But it may be one of many different factors. I get not having a lot of a credit history would prevent me from getting something from a service provider that I’ve never used before however these guys were supposed to be different. I should not be surprised since the general feedback about them in all of the expected some part of are negative.

Server Need a Spa Day

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I learnt something new at work this week. Apparently when you’re moving servers and computer equipment large distances when it gets to its destination it needs to rest for a few hours. I am assured they don’t need massages or comfortable beds. Or if we want that it’s only in the premium package.

W Sister Short on Sports

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The other day we were going out to a birthday party.  M called up to the girls: “Girls get your trainers on for the birthday party since there will be sports.” The girls both groaning a reply “we don’t like sports”.

The first thing that pops into my mind is that they are totally my children.

Photo from me during my first year playing Soccer (ie Football) since I don’t typically post pictures of the girls.

The Story of Yet Another Android Phone I Wont Have For Long

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In late July I went to the car phone warehouse in the mall at Canary wharf and bought a new Nokia 6.1 android phone. I have been on and off again if I wanted to purchase another android phone. A month or so ago I was in the same store and opted not to buy something. At the time I was convinced history would repeat itself and I would buy a phone simply to return it or sell it in a few months. That is what i have tended to do with Android phones. That may still be the case with this phone. My motivation this time around was I wanted a pretty big screen compared to the iPhone SE that I got from work.

The intention is to use this phone for work and have it be the only device i have the work management apps on. I am trying to keep the annoying work management applications off my personal iPhone X. The challenges the iPhone that I get from work has a tiny screen then I can’t really see any more. Instead of spending huge amounts of money out of my own pocket on work phone I figured I would splurge on an entry level android phone with the big screen to use for work applications.

I won’t use android for personal use due to my security concerns that I’ve outlined previously. I’m a little concerned about using it at all however for work applications I am less worried. Yes for those die hard people reading this i know that my location will be leaked to google and a whole bunch of other things issues with data collection they may have on me. For now I am not ok with it but willing to try the phone anyway. It’s like i know that cup cake is bad for me or that Amazon Echo in my office is bad for me. I eat it and have it but know i will likely have to deal with it somehow later.

My goal is to uninstall the work management application on my personal number. I have been lazy so having it on my personal phone has been nice. The final straw for me was my company switched management applications a few months ago. The new one requires you to change your PIN code frequently. It’s annoying and unnecessary and certificates and email application.

I started debating about purchasing an android phone a few months ago. At the time I opted to avoid android and see if I can make it work with the smaller screen iPhone for work. Recently I’ve been reconsidering my decision so I started researching options. I narrowed my options down to the Moto G6 plus for the new Nokia 6.1. Both phones reviewed very well. The Moto G6 plus seemed to come out on top in every review I read.. In any event it was close. I opted for the Nokia because it offers android one and a pretty plain-vanilla OS experience. That means in theory quicker upgrades to the operating system. For me that was a bigger selling point than all the other minor advantages the Moto G6 plus had. All reviews complained about the Moto reputation for slow operating system upgrades. That is a no no for me.

My first impressions of the phone are generally positive, for an android phone. The build quality seems pretty good. It’s a metal and glass phone. Some reviews questioned the screen quality. I don’t need super high density screens because I have enough trouble seeing things. This room is big bright and clear for me. For what I’m going to use it for it’s been perfectly fine so far. As expected my biggest issues with the phone are really with the android operating system and nothing with the hardware.

The android OS as always has been experience for me feels more customizable however clunkier to use than iOS. Using android phone means the trade-off that I cannot get texts from my personal number on this phone since I cannot use Apple messages.

Other annoyances with the operating system android ecosystem more specific is that my play store account can only be one region time. I can only change the region or country once every year. I thought Apple handled multicountry options poorly. At least Apple lets me switch between two accounts. Not sure if I can do the same with my play account. I have to try the same with the google play store.

I do like how the management app segregates the work apps from the personal ones. Is that and the bigger screen worth the security trade offs i know i am making by just carrying the phone? I am not sure. I like it however part of me already regrets having it. I am going to give myself a month at minimum to see if i use it and like it before deciding if it goes onto eBay.