
If you are already abroad, an alternative is to activate an international plan on your mobile phone. Because you need to be able to accept a phone call or text, you need to be in the USA when you do it. You MUST be able to receive a call or text to your mobile phone number from Google Voice. Make sure to consider these before you start taking any actions on porting your phone number: 1. And it’s free!īefore you port your mobile phone number to Google Voice, there are a few things to know. They take care of setting it up from there. And when you’re ready to move back and activate your mobile phone number on a USA mobile phone carrier again, you unlock your number using Google Voice unlock page ( see Option 2) and let your mobile phone provider know you want to use your number. It costs only $20 to port your mobile phone number to Google Voice. Whether you are interested in switching carriers in the USA and want to keep your old number or moving abroad and want to maintain both (your old number and new international one), Google Voice lets you port your mobile number so that you can still receive calls and texts while living abroad. Little did I know that Google Voice is all I ever needed to search to find the answer to my expensive dual country mobile phone problem. It’s taken me 1.5 years living abroad and 18 monthly payments to Verizon Wireless later to finally find a solution that allows me to keep my USA mobile number and continue using it to communicate with other Americans in the USA while living in the UK.ĭespite many Verizon live chats from the UK and googling all the wrong search terms to figure out how to solve my USA mobile phone problem, it’s American expats in the UK that sorted it out for me. Wondering how to keep your mobile number? If you’re moving overseas and trying to figure out how to keep your USA mobile phone number while moving abroad so that you can keep using that same number on return trips to the USA or when you return back for good, Google Voice is the way.
