Originally Posted by
Stgermainparis
Sort of related question to the recent exchange. Son moving to Europe for almost a year and has Google Fi. I was planning to pause it and pay for a month here and there so he doesn’t lose his number. So all in maybe $75 to keep it for when he returns. Is there a super cheap option to “hold” a number?
The easy way is to port it to Google Voice so he can keep using it through the GV app to call and text the U.S. for free. Coming from Fi this is free--it's presented as an option when you cancel service. The Voice number will stay tied to the same Google account that Fi was on. From other carriers it's a $20 one-time fee to port in. When he gets back, he can either just keep using it through GV or port it out to the carrier of his choice. That's free. Keeping it on GV is easier if he's going to move back abroad or chase prepaid intro deals for cheap service, but GV doesn't support iMessage or RCS (SMS/MMS only) if that matters.
When we used to keep a Fi account on pause, it would automatically resume after 3 months but there was nothing stopping you from re-pausing it 20 minutes later and paying only for an hour of service. In the last year we had it, I think Fi was active for a one-week trip to the U.S. and for an hour every 3 months.