UScolorado1k

I am just moving to a new company which evidently will not reimburse cell phone expenses but WILL supply me with a company cell that is fully paid by them. My problem is that I currently have two cell phones, one personal, one "work" from my previous company. The "work" number is an apple iphone with the unlimited voice plan, my personal cell is a blackberry curve. I don't really want to give up the number on the apple iphone because most, if not all, of my professional colleagues have that number and it would be a pain to change. I don' want to give up my personal BB because my wife and I both have one on a family plan (t-mobile) and since I'm on the road all the time she loves to be able to "pin" messages to me throughout the day, PLUS I finally dumped my land line and changed the phone number with all my credit card companies, etc, to my personal cell.

My options are:
1. Take the company cell and carry 3 cell phones (yuck)
2. Use the "work" number for my new company, but pay the bill myself.

I am leaning strongly towards number 2, but my wife thinks I'm nuts.

Comments?

tev9999

Your old company is letting you keep their cell phone? Was it yours and they just reimbursed you for it?

If you can't port your number to the new cell company phone, I would change your voicemail message on the old work phone to say "call me at my new number" and disable the ability to leave messages. Drop it to the minimum contract price for a couple months, then cancel it if you can. Numbers get changed all the time - people will adapt.

Keep the blackberry for personal use.

UScolorado1k

Yes, it was my own phone and they just reimbursed me.

I thought about porting my number over to the "company" phone, but I have heard of situations where people do this and when they leave the company, they can't "port" the number out to a new phone.

Lineman

If all the services are GSM (which AT&T and T-Mobile are) I think there are phones out there that can take 2 SIM cards. Not sure if that helps you because i'm sure you want to use your iPhone, but maybe there is a blackberry type phone that can take 2 sims.

cordelli

Take the phone they give you

Forward that to which ever of the others you want to get calls on

Leave it home, and you still get all the calls.

Better then carrying three phones

JadedTraveler

A common occurance. This is often written into corporate rate contract that an employer has with a cell phone company. So in addition to being a company policy ("if you leave, the phone number stays with/belongs to us..."), it's a contractual agreement with the phone company.

djk7

That would work, but does it provide any advantage to just passing up the company phone altogether and giving his existing work number out as the cell number to use?

The opposite should be cheaper. Take the company phone. Switch your own biz phone to the cheapest plan possible, leave it in a drawer, and forward it to your new company phone. The OP loses use of the iphone, but could save $$.

DCATravel

Went through this issue a few months ago. Did the following:

1 - Signed-up for a Grand Central Number. This eliminated a huge problem, everyone not knowing what number to call me on. This consolidated my headaches and gave me a number that I controlled and not the company.

2 - Send an e-mail alerting everyone to the new number. I find that most people will change the contact information and dial from the contact rather than memory. Other than your parents, can you remember most peoples numbers? Have over 100 in my phone and can't remember half of them.

sammy0623

here's another idea, similar to the old phone having a message saying to call you at your new number:

if your "old" phone company has call forwarding, you can forward all your calls to your new number (mine is by dialing *72-123-555-1234 and hitting send, YMMV of course). tell everyone about the new number, but leave this on for a couple of months, for anyone who missed the announcement. this does use minutes (at least with alltel it does). also, when people call you and you miss the call, you can call them back with your new number, and then they'll have it.

Dubai Stu

Port your personal biz number to callwave.com and forward that to your business phone.

leland

Seconded. Port it over to a VOIP provider, then slowly wean people off of it.

If I could pay grandcentral to accept a ported number I would do that. Don't want to introduce another new number that is still in beta. Don't know what the fees will be, service will be like, etc.

UScolorado1k

Thanks for all the advice, however I may have left out a couple of pertinent facts from my original post:

-I really, really like my BB, dont' want to give it up
-I really, really like my Iphone, don't want to give it up

So, I still am leaning towards just using my Iphone for business and eating the cost.

BTW, the phones that my new company gives out are the really, really cheap "free" phones from the service provider that they use.

newself

Another "issue" to remember about using a company owned cellphone is that they now have tracking availability on you.

peachfront

You're asking what *I* would do? I'd take the company cell phone, if I was unable to carry over my old number to the new phone then I'd contact everyone and let them know the new number. And I'd teach my wife to use email if she wanted to "pin" messages on me all day long. Then I'd dump the plans/phones that my new employer wasn't paying for. Profit.

That's what *I* would do. But I've learned when people make multiple excuses in the original post as to why they must do the most expensive impractical thing -- such as having three plans/phones -- well, they've already made up their minds and probably don't really want to know what *I* would do. They're just asking to be polite.

BTW, and I know I'm showing my age here, but back in the day, we used to change our telephone numbers all the time! Even if we just moved across the street! And somehow our friends, family, business partners, colleagues, customers, and stalkers found us just the same. Changing a phone number just isn't as difficult as you young whippersnappers think. :-)

planeluvr

If that is the case, chunk the "new" company phone and with the unlimited plan you know what the cost will be to use your IPhone.