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T-Mobile's 'Digits' Solution Lets You Use One Phone Number Across All Your Devices (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: T-Mobile just revealed its answer to ATT's NumberSync technology, which lets customers use one phone number across all their connected devices. T-Mobile's version is called Digits and it will launch in a limited, opt-in customer beta beginning today before rolling out to everyone early next year. "You can make and take calls and texts on whatever device is most convenient," the company said in its press release. "Just log in and, bam, your call history, messages and even voicemail are all there. And it's always your same number, so when you call or text from another device, it shows up as you." When it leaves beta, Digits will cost an extra monthly fee, but T-Mobile isn't revealing pricing today. "This is not going to be treated as adding another line to your account," said COO Mike Sievert. "Expect us to be disruptive here." And while its main feature is one number for everything, Digits does offer T-Mobile customers another big perk: multiple numbers on the same device. This will let you swap between personal and work numbers without having to maintain separate lines and accounts. You can also give out an "extra set" of Digits in situations where you might be hesitant to give someone your primary number; this temporary number forwards to your devices like any other call. You can have multiple numbers for whatever purposes you want, based on T-Mobile's promotional video.
Sooooo, Google Voice? Except GV is carrier independent, and free, so I guess that's what sets it apart.
You aren't using extra minutes or text messages. In fact, you'll be using data from somewhere else freeing spectrum.
I would like to know why they are still assigning numbers to devices that can't make use of them.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Does this include my (T-Mobile) flip-phone and my home and office VOIP telephones? In 1996, USWest (before they were Qwest or CenturyLink) gave me One Number service that would ring both my mobile (if it was on) and my land-line (if it wasn't busy) and have a single voicemail box between them. For the past 15 years, apparently, that would be too advanced of a technology for anyone to offer. Sad.
I already get almost all of this with Project Fi. I can receive calls on any computer; calls are forwarded to any other numbers I want; and so on. The only thing I can't easily do is get temporary numbers. And all of these features don't cost anything extra.
Yeaaaaah, you might want to hold off on signing up for that just yet.
The first thing that comes to mind is the ipad line which AFAIK is not able to text or make calls using it's included phone number. I also seem to remember a few air cards over the years that didn't support texting either although I don't remember which ones.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Unless each one is converted to text so I can skip all unnecessary messages, and jump to the one which has my ETD at JFK.
Or shall we live with these google voice wannabes? Time to make us excited about technology again.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
In www I have classes of websites. Each class has it's own login and it's own password. Things like /., Soylent News and Fark? Same login, same password. Things like my bank or investment companies? All have different logins and different passwords. Things in between are in between.
If you think I'm going to use my phone number for everything you've got to rethink you're strategy. At least concerning me. My worry is, 90% of your customers will jump the the "oh hell yeah" phase, completely skipping the "um, but...." phase.
Because doing otherwise would force them to scrap ss7 with something else, and nobody can agree what that replacement should be, or how to deploy it in a way that allows a gradual phase-in instead of a disruptive & risky instant switch-over.
A data device, without a handset, can still do text messaging.
No, that number cannot be used in that way. Like my iPhone number is (123) 456-7890, and my iPad number is (123) 456-7809. I can't send a text to the latter number, which is why the GP's question makes sense. Why not allow the phone number to be used for data-only connections as well? You don't need to use the voice spectrum
Yes, that's the demand side of supply and demand. Also, they spend a couple hundred million or whatever building the system nationwide, and recovered that $xxx million plus the interest they paid (or could have received) on that $xxx million, 25 cents at a time. That's the supply side.
AFTER they spent however much to build it, the incremental cost to send one MORE text was low, but they needed to pay off the loan of $xxx million that they used to build it in the first place.
What I hope this is is the ability to go running and have your smart watch act as your phone. Get in your car and have the car stereo act as a phone. Then switch it back to the mobile phone device. That's something GV does not do or if it does it requires wifi.
The way I understand this to work is that each device's IMEI can be added to the pool for a particular number and you can select on the fly which device(s) are active. In addition they are offering that you can have multiple numbers and multiple IMEI's pooled between them.
The only thing surprising about this is why, in 2017, this hasn't happened sooner.
Find a friend with Fi. Transfer number to google voice. Have them get you a data sim. Pay friend monthly for what you use. 1 cent, 1 mb. Hangouts calls use about 1 cent/min.
If your devices are Apple products you already have this, no ISP support required.
Because that's how they index their billing?