Cheapskate's Guide to Keeping Your Landline Home Number

(Note: Most of the following information is US-centric. In the US, telecommunications is a complex fabric of government regulation, commercial interests, flim-flam artists, and lawyerly pursuits. We know the same is true of many other countries, but we are not familiar with those non-US ins and outs.)

We don't have to tell you that a lot of people and families have completely abandoned landlines in favor of mobile phones. You don't need us to explain how to do that. If you want to keep that landline home telephone number, there are many ways to park it somewhere, for free or low cost.

If you want to keep actually using that number to make or receive calls or texts, things are a bit trickier. In our family, we've had the same landline number for decades, so it's recorded as the contact number in all kinds of forgotten places. Each household member also has a mobile phone number, of course, but we still get a fair number of calls on that established home phone number. For a while, we contemplated giving up the number entirely, but we eventually decided it was just too tangled up in the data stream of our lives. After a lot of research and trial and error experiments, we found a fairly cheap way to keep that number going and to use it in pretty much the same ways we have been using it for years.

We suppose we should stop calling ours a landline, because ours hasn't been literally that for years and years. It's long been riding on Voice over IP (VoIP) in a parade of VoIP providers, along with little boxes to handle complex but common protocol translations. Still, logically, it's a landline, though we can't promise it will help you escape from agents in The Matrix.

We have the following requirements:

1. Required: As inexpensive as possible.
2. Required: The user experience for household members can't be too complicated.
3. Required: Call quality must be reasonable (good audio, not a lot of dropped calls, etc).
4. Desirable: Continue being able to use our multi-handset cordless phone.
5. Required: One household member must be able to answer calls to that number on their mobile phone, in addition to the existing mobile number on that phone.
6. Desirable: One household member must be able to make calls from that number on their mobile phone.
7. Desirable: Multiple household members able make and receive calls on their mobile phone, in addition to the existing mobile numbers they have on those phones.
8. Required: Voicemail service with notifications via email or text.
9. Desirable: Text transcription of voicemail messages.

We use an old Android mobile phone, a cordless phone, and a Google Voice number to make things happen. We're able to get all of the required and desirable items for a monthly recurring cost of under $6/month.

The setup procedure may seem daunting, but we've broken it down into easy steps. Once it's all set up, the pain will be behind you, and you can go back to just making and receiving phone calls. Along the way, we try to minimize the amount of time that your home phone number will be out in the wilderness and unavailable for calls.

You don't need much equipment to make this happen. We had this stuff on hand, but you should be able to find it for pretty cheap. In any case, it's a one-time cost.

1. An old Android mobile phone. It doesn't have to be particularly new, but it must support WiFi calling. It's better if it supports a physical SIM card, even if it also supports an eSIM, but you could get away with a phone that only supports eSIM. It's OK if the phone has cosmetic flaws or even a cracked screen, as long as you can use it to do some settings and configuration. It's OK if the battery is nearly kaput, as long as the phone works continuously while plugged in. You should make sure that the phone is unlocked and is not blacklisted as lost/stolen by mobile phone carriers. (We are using an old original Google Pixel that was living a quiet life in a drawer.)
2. One or two SIM cards from a low-cost mobile phone provider. Avoid any that require the use of their app to make or receive calls. Most of those are VoIP services and try as hard as possible to avoid the use of the mobile phone's standard dialer app. You need two SIM cards if you need to do the Google Voice two-step dance (see the description below), else you only need a single SIM card.
3. A cordless phone that is able to link to a mobile phone over Bluetooth. Most of the market-leading cordless phone makers have models with that feature. (We are using a Panasonic cordless phone with the Link-to-Cell feature.) It doesn't actually have to be a cordless phone, but that's probably the only place where you are likely to find the feature. There are also some standalone gadgets that can pair with a mobile phone and then plug into a landline phone, but we haven't tried any of those. If you don't want to use a cordless phone with Bluetooth linkage, you might like to explore those instead.

We wish we could tell you approximately how much this will cost you, but there are too many possibilities.

1. If you have to buy an Android mobile phone, you don't need a new or fancy one. If you shop around on auction and used phone sites, you ought to be able to get something good enough for $50-$100.
2. If you need to buy a cordless phone for the Bluetooth linking feature, that's probably around $50, but it could go a lot higher, according to your taste and preferences.
3. You will need either 1 or 2 SIM cards, which typically have some kind of one-time charge, which might just be a shipping fee or might be some kind of activation fee. If it's a prepaid plan, it will probably also include the first month's service. Let's take a guess at $20.
4. The permanent SIM card plan will have a monthly cost. Assuming you use a prepaid plan, that should be under $10/month.
5. There might be a nominal fee involved in porting your home number from the current carrier to Google Voice. Check your current carrier's support information. Google Voice charges a one-time fee of $20 to port in a number. FYI, if you ever need to port you number back out of Google Voice, they charge a $3 fee for that.

There are a bunch of things that can go sideways when the mobile phone and the cordless phone as talking to each other. If you already have them, like we did, you can just try thing and see if they work. If you have to buy one or the other, the bigger question mark will be the mobile phone. If the first one you buy doesn't work out, we hope it was cheap or you can somehow recover your costs. We did all our work with Android phones. We don't know of any reason that it wouldn't work with an iPhone, but we have no experience with them. Some of the specific details in the steps below would be different. If you have to buy an old phone, an old Android phone is going to be cheaper anyhow. If you try with an iPhone, let us know in the comments how it went so others might benefit from your experience.

Create a Google account specifically for this effort. Give it a name that will remind you why you created it.

Technically, you don't have to create a new Google account if someone in your household already has one, but it's less confusing in the long run if you create one for this dedicated purpose. Keep the password handy because we'll be coming back to it in a later step.

One of the things you'll be doing is porting your home phone number to Google Voice. "Porting" is the industry term for moving a number from one carrier to another. Google Voice has the restriction that you can only port in numbers that are currently using a mobile carrier. There are some other restriction cases, but that's the big one. There's a well-known two-step process for getting past that restriction.

You can easily find out whether you can directly port your number to Google Voice or whether you need to do the two-step workaround. Go to the Google Voice settings for the new Google Account. You can do that via the Google Voice web interface at voice.google.com. You'll find an option for porting your number into Google Voice. Before you can port your number, you have to first prove it's your number by receiving a one-time code via text or voice call. When you've done that, Google Voice will tell you whether or not you can port that number to Google Voice. In either case, stop right there. Do not pull the trigger on porting your number yet.

If Google Voice told you it could not port your number, then you will need to do the two-step process to work around it. That means you will need two SIM cards: a temporary SIM card and a permanent SIM card. If Google Voice says it can port your number in, then you need only the permanent SIM card.

We'll come back to all of this in a later step.

Unless you are lucky and find it in a physical store, you'll be waiting a little while for delivery. So, this is the first step. Depending on whether or not you need the Google Voice two-step, you'll need two SIM cards or just one.

You will definitely need one SIM card for permanent use, which we imaginatively call the permanent SIM card. If there is some kind pf price break for subscribing for more than a month, it's worth considering. If you need to do the Google Voice two-step, you will need a second SIM card, which you will only use for at most a couple of weeks. We call that the temporary SIM card. There's no requirement that the two SIM cards use the same plan or are from the same carrier. You might find that a SIM card for a service which includes the first month's service is a cheap way to go. You do want to explore whether porting number to or from the temporary SIM card carrier looks like a well-established process. You can usually get a feel for that by reviewing web site FAQs and other documentation. If in doubt, call and ask about it.

What kind of service are you looking for? As we already mentioned, you don't want a service that requires the use of their app for calls. You will not actually be making or receiving calls over that service, so you can look for a plan that has the minimum amount of included minutes, texts, and data. You will need at least some minutes and texts for setup and testing purposes, but you won't need either for ongoing use. Prepaid plans are likely to be the cheapest. For your own convenience, check that there is a way to automatically make the recurring payments for the permanent SIM card. Also check that the service won't be cancelled as long as you make the monthly payments, even if you don't make or receive any calls or texts.

When shopping by price, keep in mind that you might have to poke around to find the real cost per month. There is an annoying constellation of taxes on phone service in the US, and the total amount varies by where you live. Even within the same state, it can vary by city or county. Don't be surprised if the taxes are almost as much as the service itself. (Be outraged, but don't be surprised.) Some services also add a bogus regulatory compliance fee or technology fee or other fees. We call them bogus, not because they aren't real costs for the carrier, but because they don't include those fees in the price they quote for the service. If you bought something in a store and found out at the cash register that there was an additional "real estate fee", wouldn't you think that was a bit underhanded? If the carrier you want to use does charge any of those bogus fees, there's not much you can do about it except to make sure you know about it before deciding what the service will cost you. Most mobile carriers will have available the legally mandated Broadband Facts label for their services, though it's only required for plans that include data.

You should do you own shopping, of course. The cheapest plan we found for our permanent SIM card was Ultra Mobile PayGo at $3/month. With the taxes, it comes out to $5-$6/month in our town. For our temporary SIM card, we found an online web site selling a Tello SIM card that included the first month's service for a price that made the cost of the SIM card free. A month is plenty more than enough time for the use of the temporary SIM card.

No matter what, your first step is to factory reset the phone. Even if it's a phone of your own that you pulled out of the cobwebs, it's smart to clean things up so that you are starting with a known quantity. If it's a phone you just bought, a factory reset is double-extra-super required. You never know. If the phone has a removable storage card, make sure it gets formatted in the process, or do it separately.

Go through the phone's setup wizard. When prompted for a Google account, use the one created in an earlier step. Connect the phone to your home WiFi network. Let the phone settle itself by doing app updates and so on. You might want to manually check for system software updates since it might otherwise take a day or two for the phone to automatically check and notify you.

In this step, we're talking about the permanent SIM card, not the temporary SIM card. If you have both, set the temporary SIM card aside for the moment.

If your permanent SIM card has not yet arrived, sit quietly with your cat or dog by the front door waiting for it. You really can't go any further until you have the SIM card. Is it there yet? Is it there yet? Is it there yet? OK, I see it has arrived.

Insert the permanent SIM card into the mobile phone. The SIM card will have come with instructions about how to activate it, and it usually takes only a couple minutes. When asked, say that you want a new number. It doesn't really matter what area code the number is in, and the number need not be memorable. Just make a note of it so you don't lose track. If you're making a list, call it the "permanent SIM card number".

Sometime between immediately and a few hours, your phone and the carrier's network will be on the same page about where to direct calls to your new number. It may help (or it may not) to reboot your phone. You should eventually see that phone number in the settings "About phone" (or "About device"). You can also try making some test calls from another phone to that new number. Try making a test call from the phone.

Don't go to the next step until your new number for the permanent SIM card is working for calls and texts.

Just to be extra clear, here and elsewhere, the two phones are the "mobile phone" (which takes a SIM card) and the "cordless phone", which is for use in and around your house. The cordless phone is not the kind you put in your pocket when you go out shopping.

How you actually link the two over Bluetooth is going to depend on your cordless phone, but its manual should explain the process. Your cordless phone is going to pretend to be a sophisticated Bluetooth headset, and you will be pairing it with your mobile phone.

The process probably looks like this:

1. One the cordless phone base station, or maybe one of the handsets, navigate the configuration to tell it you want to link a new mobile phone.
2. When the cordless phone says it's ready, open the Bluetooth settings on the mobile phone and pair a new device. Hopefully, the name of the cordless phone in the list of available devices will be obvious enough, especially if the cordless phone manual tells you what it will be. You may or may not get prompted to confirm a pairing PIN.

Your cordless phone may have various other options for how to use the linked mobile phone. Set those according to your preferences. Try making a test call from your cordless phone via the Bluetooth link. The recipient should see the call as coming from the mobile phone permanent SIM card's new mobile number. Make a test call to the mobile phone number. It should ring on the cordless phone, and might also still ring on the mobile phone.

From the Google play store, install the Google Voice app on the mobile phone. As you go through the app's setup, it will ask you a few things, which might be in a different order than we describe them here. If you accidentally answer any of these things the wrong way, you should fish around in Google Voice or phone settings to switch things to the correct configuration.

1. Do you want a new Google Voice number or move your existing number to Google Voice? You want a new number. This is only temporary, and we'll be porting your existing home number to Google Voice later. As with the number for the SIM card, it doesn't really matter what the area code is or whether this temporary number is memorable. Just make a note of it. If you're making a list, call it the "Google Voice temporary number".
2. Do you want to associate your Google Voice number with the mobile phone's number? Yes, you do. This is making an association between the Google Voice number and the number assigned to your phone's permanent SIM card.
3. Do you want the phone's dialer app to use Google Voice for outgoing calls? Yes, you do. This is important because your cordless phone's Bluetooth linkage will almost certainly be using the phone's standard dialer app to make outbound calls. That's the reason we advised against mobile services that require the use of an app for making calls.
4. Do you want incoming Google Voice calls to ring on this phone? Yes, you do. You will need this to be true so that the cordless phone will also ring for incoming calls.
5. Do you want to prefer WiFi instead of the carrier's phone minutes? I don't think this comes up as a question during setup, so you will have to find it in the Google Voice settings. Yes, you do want to prefer WiFi. Google Voice calls can still use the carrier's mobile data, but that should only happen if your WiFi is down for some reason.

Once you've got things all set up for Google Voice with the temporary number, try making some test calls to that Google Voice temporary number. Your cordless phone should ring; your mobile phone might also ring, or it might not. Try making an outbound call from the cordless phone using whatever procedure it takes to use the Bluetooth-linked mobile phone. The caller ID seen on the called phone should be the Google Voice temporary number.

Why should you do this step now? The porting process and the swapping of SIM cards in the mobile phone can lead to periods where your home number does not ring on your cordless phone. Those periods should generally be quite short. If you set up Google Voice to also ring on one or more other mobile phones, then they should still ring while you are still attending to details for the Bluetooth-linked mobile phone and cordless phone.

It you look back up at the requirements we set out for our household, you might find some of those things useful in your household, too, even if you are not currently doing it that way. Of particular interest is being able to use the home number to make and receive calls from one or more household members' mobile phones. That's pretty easy to do, even if they are already using Google Voice for a different number.

You might not be aware of it, but Google Voice and Google more generally will let you use multiple Google accounts on both the web interfaces and on mobile phone apps, at least for Android phones. To be able to use the home number on any of those mobile phones, you'll use the Google account that you set up for your home number in an early step. Since you'll be providing the credentials for that Google account to the users of those mobile phones, it should go without saying that they should be people you trust to not mess with the account settings to upset the apple Google cart.

For any particular phone, if you already have the Google Voice app installed, you'll be adding another account to it. Otherwise, install the Google Voice app and configure it during setup with the Google account you created for the home number. If you think there is a chance of being somewhere with mobile phone service but no mobile data service (which is rare for most of us in the US these days), you can add that mobile phone's number as a new "linked number" in the Google Voice app. Otherwise, you needn't bother. There's a limit on how many linked numbers you can have for a Google Voice number.

If you are using multiple accounts and Google Voice numbers, you can configure, again in the Google Voice settings, any subset of them to ring on that phone for incoming calls. To make outbound calls, use the Google Voice app and make sure the account is set to the one you want to be seen in the caller ID by the recipient.

For incoming calls that ring on multiple phones, whichever phone answers first will be connected. You can set up email notifications for calls and voicemail transcripts to whatever email address you want.

It should be clear by now (well, it might be confusing until you settle into it) that any subset of household members with mobile phones can participate in the use of the home phone number. They can have the number ring on their mobile phone or not, and they can make outgoing calls using that number or any other carrier number or Google Voice number on their phone. It's a very flexible arrangement.

At this point, your cordless phone is still connected to your home phone number via whatever landline carrier you currently have. That same cordless phone is linked via Bluetooth to your temporary Google Voice number and able to do calls in either direction via the mobile phone. If you felt like it, you could abandon this whole effort and keep your home number operating the way it has been. But you do want to keep going, so keep going!

Now we're really getting down to business and will soon try to move your home number to Google Voice. Don't do that yet. This is only a description of the process, which you will actually do a bit later.

Find out from your current carrier what is needed to port your number out. You may have to do some kind of unlocking step or obtain a special code or similar. Most carriers make this step self-service, but for some carriers you will have to call their customer support. It's possible (but rare) for your current carrier to charge a fee for porting a number out. IMPORTANT: Do NOT yet close the account at the current carrier; if you do, you will lose the number and won't ever be able to port it.

If you need to do the two-step workaround with a temporary SIM card, the process is similar except that the porting destination is the carrier for the temporary SIM card instead of Google Voice. We use specifics about Google Voice here since you will definitely be doing that at a later step, whether or not you need to do the two-step workaround. It should be obvious enough how to do it instead for the temporary SIM card if you need to do that.

Go to the Google Voice account for that mobile phone and select the option for porting your number to Google Voice. You can do it either via the web interface or via the Google Voice app. As of this writing, Google charges $20 for porting a number in, so you will have to enter payment details for that. They will prompt you for whatever details they need to initiate the port. Be careful to precisely enter any account names, numbers, or codes so that automated processes can complete smoothly.

If the port fails, because of a "non-mobile" number or any other reason, your home phone number will continue to work with the current carrier and ring your cordless phone. What happens if the port is going to succeed? Your current carrier and Google Voice will tell you some pessimistic time frames for the port to happen. It can sometimes happen within a small number of hours, or it could take some number of days. The actual transfer of the number from your current carrier to Google Voice is likely to happen nearly instantaneously, regardless of the delay that occurs before that transfer actually happens. In the meantime, the number should stay active at your current carrier and ring on your cordless phone. At some point, that will stop working as the number is transferred to Google Voice, at which point the number will ring on the mobile phone and via the link to the cordless phone. From callers' point of view, the actual downtime for the number should be quite short. You can check your Google Voice settings to make sure that your home number, which is now your Google Voice number, is still associated with the mobile phone SIM card number.

Once the number has transferred to Google Voice, your current carrier (which is now your previous carrier) is likely to automatically close your account with them. It's worth checking anyhow to make sure, and to settle up any final charges on that account.

You're here because Google Voice thinks your home number is not a mobile number, so they can't port it to Google Voice. The workaround is to first port it to a mobile carrier and then port it from that mobile carrier to Google Voice. Be sure to review the information about the mechanics of number porting in the step just above.

Swap the temporary SIM card into the mobile phone. Set your tiny permanent SIM card aside and don't let your pet crow peck it to destruction. You don't need to go through the same steps of affiliating it with Google Voice, but you should make sure the linkage of the mobile phone via Bluetooth to the cordless phone is still intact. When activating the temporary SIM card, choose that you want to port your existing number. Depending on the carrier's details, they might not ask you during activation but instead offer a way to do it later. If they do ask during setup, the mobile carrier may assign you a temporary number while waiting for the number port to happen. You don't really care about that temporary number, other than making a note of it in case you need to talk to the carrier's support if something goes wrong. If you're making a list, call it the "temporary SIM card number".

While you are waiting for the port of your home number to take place, it will still work with your current carrier and ring on your cordless phone via the landline connection. After the transfer happens, that home number will ring on the mobile phone and also ring on the cordless phone via the Bluetooth link.

Once the port is completed, you should probably wait a few days for the number to "settle in" at the mobile carrier for the temporary SIM card before going to the next step. All those hidden databases need to talk to each other and get on the same page about it. You might be able to get away with it sooner, especially if the carrier for your temporary SIM card is an MVNO for one of the big mobile carriers. Look for outbound calls via the temporary SIM card to have the correct caller ID, and see that texting to and from the ported number work as expected.

Why do you need to bother with this second, temporary SIM card? Why can't you just do this two-step process using the permanent SIM card that you have? It's because most carriers will automatically close your account when you port a number out. They might allow you to get a new number assigned to that SIM card, but in general they won't. That's especially true for the sort of low-cost bare-bones-plan SIM card you are probably using. Using the secondary, temporary SIM card is a bit more hassle and cost, but it removes that area of doubt.

You are in one of these situations:

1. Google Voice has said they can port your home number directly from its current carrier.
2. Or, your home number is active on the temporary SIM card because you needed the two-step workaround, and it is definitely a mobile carrier. You've waited at least a few days for things to settle in.

It's time to port that number from that carrier to Google Voice. Go back a couple of steps and review the information about porting your number to Google Voice. The port should not fail due to the number not being a mobile number. There are other reasons it can fail, mostly requiring some customer support prodding to get things resolved.

If you are using the temporary SIM card because of the two-step workaround, once the number transfer happens, the mobile phone is likely to start reporting that the temporary SIM card has no service. To minimize down time for your home number, check the porting status frequently. As soon as it happens, it's time to swap out that temporary SIM card for the permanent SIM card. Go through the Google Voice settings to make sure it's still associated with the phone number for the permanent SIM card, that it still rings on the mobile phone, and that it still rings on the cordless phone.

Check the account for the temporary SIM card to make sure it's closed to prevent future billing. Most carriers will close the account automatically when a number is ported out, but it doesn't hurt to check.

There's an important detail to take care of. What happens if there is an emergency and someone calls 911 over the Bluetooth-linked mobile phone? Unlike traditional landline service, where the carrier knows your physical address and links it to the number for the 911 emergency services databases, a mobile phone is typically ... mobile. There is a system called Enhanced 911 (E911) for mobile phones. Even though your mobile phone won't move at all, it's still covered by E911.

There are two things you should do:

1. Update your physical address in the account information for the carrier for the permanent SIM card. This is a sort of fallback if all of the other things don't work at a particular point in time. This should be a physical address where the mobile phone and cordless phone are located, so don't use a P.O. Box or similar.
2. Make sure the phone settings have Emergency Location Service enabled. The easiest way to find this is to search in your phone's settings for "emergency".

In some cases, you might be able to verify that the location information is updated correctly by calling the emergency service test number, which is 933. An automated system will read out the location information. Do not call 911 to test this; call 933.

One way or another, your home number is now on Google Voice on a Google account dedicated to that purpose. Now is the time to make sure that all the Google Voice settings are just the way you want them, and all of the Bluetooth linkage works properly. Make some calls in both directions. Review the information in earlier steps to make sure everything is as it should be.

You can disconnect the physical landline cord from your cordless phone base station. If the cordless phone Bluetooth linkage has a setting like "always use the cell phone", you probably want to turn that on to make the user experience a little better.

Congratulations! You got there. All the weirdness and inconvenience of these steps are behind you.

When you're satisfied everything is working, find a convenient permanent location for the mobile phone. It obviously has to be within Bluetooth range of the cordless phone base station, which is about 30 feet if there is nothing between. Counter-intuitively, you don't want it too close to the cordless phone base station because that proximity can lead to static and interference. We think 7-10 feet is a good distance.

You'll also want a location near an electrical outlet so that you can leave the phone charging all the time. That's not the best for the phone's battery, but if you are using an old phone the battery may have seen better days already. Even if it won't hold a charge at all, as long as it works with the charger plugged in, it's good enough (though you may have to manually turn the mobile phone on after a power failure if that's the case).

For good measure, especially if the mobile phone is no longer getting updates, you might like to cover the camera and microphone with something. They don't get used in this arrangement.

Now is a good time to double-check some things.

1. Is your account closed at the old carrier?
2. If you used a temporary SIM card, is the account for that carrier closed?
3. If you set up any other temporary account because of trial and error SIM card fun, have you closed those accounts?
4. Have you set up recurring automatic payments for the permanent SIM card account?
5. Have you set your physical address at your permanent SIM card carrier, and have you enabled Emergency Location Service on the mobile phone?
6. On the mobile phone, is Google Voice configured to ring on incoming calls?
7. On the mobile phone, is Google Voice configured to be used when the standard dialer makes outgoing calls?
8. Is the cordless phone linked via Bluetooth to the mobile phone?
9. Do incoming Google Voice calls on the mobile phone also ring on the cordless phone?
10. Can you make outgoing calls from the cordless phone that show the Google Voice number as the caller ID?
11. Have you unplugged the landline cord from the cordless phone?
12. If the cordless phone has such a setting, is it configured for always using the mobile phone for calls?

If you haven't set up a payment method for Google Voice, you should probably do so. This is especially important if you ever make international calls. Google Voice calls to most US numbers are free, but international calls have per-minute charges.

This isn't a step to do something. Instead, it's the explanation for a question that might have occurred to you.

The mobile phone never leaves your house and is always connected to wifi. The Google Voice app is happy to make and receive calls over the wifi data connection. In fact, these days, Google Voice is really a VoIP service. If all that's true, then why does that mobile phone need the permanent SIM card at all? If you could do without that, the monthly cost would be zero.

The reason has to do with the cordless phone linkage to the mobile phone over Bluetooth. To make outgoing calls, that linkage will use the native dialer app on the mobile phone. Even if you have configured that to prefer using wifi, and even if you have configured it to make calls via Google Voice, it will likely refuse to make any calls unless there is an active SIM card in the mobile phone. It's easy to imagine a world where that didn't need to be true, but we don't live in that world.