Fowarding US number to various SIMS
 

I currently have 3 SIM cards and carry them all in separate phones simultaneously while traveling, currently in the EU, mostly Germany with a short trip to Poland coming up. I carry a solomo.de card, an Ortel card and a US AT&T card. I have found the redundancy necessary.

Rates a good, the two German SIMS average about 9 EU cents (per minute) for calls back to the US and incoming is free in Germany. Most outgoing calls to the US from outside Germany (still in the EU) need to be made via the callback feature on the solomo.de card. Incoming and outgoing runs about 29 EU cents.

Simple until I add the desire to use a US number to allow my contacts in the US to dial a local number for them to reach me. I have done this by purchasing two phone numbers from VoiceStick and forwarding each to one of my German SIMS. Now, since I want my US contacts to have one number to keep track of, I have a Google Voice number I forward to all of my US numbers at VoiceStick. When it is working, I call the Google Voice number and all three phone ring. It does work... sometimes.

Little gotcha's about how Google Voice stops ringing all numbers when one of them stops ringing can make calls stop going to all phones. For instance, if you have carrier that gives an off net unavailable answer immediately on the first ring, that intercepts all calls. If your voicemail on one of your SIMS picks up too quickly, the other phones stop ringing. With the connection delays on International calls this can be quite a problem. But worst is when one or more numbers malfunction, going straight to busy or otherwise going off hook before any of the SIM phones ring. The whole system fails and I have no indication it has without making test calls to my Google Voice number fairly often.

The most common point of failure for me has been VoiceStick. These guys have tried very hard to troubleshoot the issues I have had and I have goodwill toward them, so I feel bad about saying this, but 90% of the time I have found it is their system where my calls are not getting routed to my SIMS in a timely fashion or not at all. I have checked this by dialing my US numbers with them directly only to find there is an issue. The rates are quite good I think, forwarding from my US VoiceStick numbers to my German SIMS is 13 US cents per minute, making incoming calls while in Germany 13 US cents per minute total, incoming in the rest of the EU 29 EU cents plus 13 US cents or 55 US cents per minute. And I can always call my caller back at 29 EU cents per minute to save the 13 US cents if I want.

I pay a monthly charge of about $3 per VoiceStick number in addition to the 13 US cents for calls to the German SIMS.

So this deal is fine with me if I have reliable cell phone connectivity while traveling on the road most places in the EU. I can't be out of touch while moving around, so WIFI and wired connections are not much use to me. I need a reliable way to connect a US number to my German SIMS at a reasonable price. Since I am currently again having problems with my VoiceStick numbers I have decided I have no choice but to look at possible alternatives. Please suggest some for me. Thank you!

Very true. With the double forwarding the potential for problems increases. I wonder when google voice will start allowing international call forwarding. It would certainly make them much better.

Here is a suggestion though: Sign up with a company such as Rebtel (it's free). Get a local number for each your international sims by adding them as a contact when you log into Rebtel. Then set your google voice number as one of the calling numbers, that is, besides your home phone, mobile phone, etc. I believe you can set up to 5 calling numbers. Then point your GV numbers to the Rebtel local numbers pointed to your international sims. Of course, you need to make sure Rebtel's rates to your sims are fine with you.

I don't know the volume of your calls or how often you travel, but why don't you just simplify your life (though it may cost you a few dollars) and buy a Dual number SIM like the one I have from Ekit. While it may cost you a bit more to make or receive some calls, at least you will get your calls and friends can have one US number to call you.

19 US cents/minute is a little high of a base rate if the user only intends on forwarding his/her regular US number for cheap reception of calls whilst outside the US. If the user makes or receives a lot of calls, the extra 10 or so cents per minute can really add up.

Yes, if I could do this all through Google it would be so much better! I wish they would get this set up.

I am looking at Rebtel right now. I don't want to make changes before I head into Poland, I won't have a stable base with Internet and landline there if anything goes wrong, but I can get an idea of what options there are for the future.

When setting up my Rebtel account should I make the application for an account with my home base in the USA or in Germany? It is not clear on the application page or support pages to me.

I would use US. Since it’s the US folks that you want to have a local number to reach you anywhere. You will be given a local US number for any contact you enter in your account.

Question on Rebtel. What if you travel to several countries in Europe. Must you get a different phone number for each contact for each country?

Not sure I understand your question. However, you will need to get a local number for each sim/number you want to be reached on.

Bossman:
Their website says:

"Tell us who you want to call. Enter your friend's name and international number and Rebtel gives you a unique local number for each friend. Create once, save to your phone and keep forever... Call from your phone. Use your regular phone to call the unique local number Rebtel gave you"... .

So if I have a friend to call and I am in Germany, and then France, do I need two local numbers? IE: one German local number and one a French local number?

So if I go to 5 countries, do I need 5 local (European) numbers per friend?

That's the way it works. It may not be the best solution for those that need to use it from different countries.

Localphone.com is another company that has "direct dial" numbers like Rebtel (be sure to use their US version - might need a US IP address - rather than the UK version, for the lowest rates).

I haven't yet used them with the direct dial. I use them with a Google Voice number pointed to a free Washington State ipkall.com number pointed to the SIP address of my voip account at localcall. When I'm in wi-fi range I pick up the call on VOIP (free), when I'm out it diverts to my Mexican mobile at a reasonable rate (10c/min) - it has failover. I've also done the same in the past with Voipfone.co.uk in the UK, but they make it difficult to subscribe from outside the UK.

Localphone do also have paid US inbound numbers (99c/mo) which is probably better than going through ipkall, one less step.

I have just tried their direct dial numbers after reading this thread (never thought to call them direct rather than voip). There are two problems with this: the numbers get re-allocated a lot so may already be in somebody else's Google Voice account (took me three tries to find an unused one). Secondly, the touch-tones don't seem to get forwarded when I try to verify on Google Voice (I'll work around that by altering the target later).

So, a basic generic solution to forwarding internationally from Google Voice is to set up a prepaid VOIP account, point an ipkall number to it, put the ipkall number in your Google Voice, and forward from the VOIP account to the international number (either all the time, or when the VOIP device isn't registered, if the company supports failover - Localphone and Voipfone do, Callwithus does not, don't know about Rebtel).

Rob

P.S. if you can pick up the call with VOIP, you get free calling to most of US and Canada through Google Voice this way, from anywhere in the world.

Truphone has the slickest setup, but their rates are high. When you put a new SIM in your phone, the truphone program sends an SMS to the home server telling it to now forward your Truphone number to this new number.

I sometimes have the same problem forwarding calls to multiple phones.

What you should do is activate call forwarding on all your cellphones. You will forward them to a specially setup number that will keep ringing and ringing. You can setup forward for different thing, phone out of reach, phone busy and so on.

This means if 1 off your phones is out of reach it will not go to voicemail on that phone. The other 2 phones could still ring and you can answer the call.