This page will go into my history with my telephone services (in case you’re interested). Throughout this page, and therefore, my history. I have dealt with between 1 and 3 services. This page will also include the rationale of how I did things as I needed to be strategic in how I did services, especially initially.
A cellular line is as the name implies, cellular. This means that I can communicate anywhere there is a supporting cellular tower nearby. Ever since my ankles collapsed, I had a need for a cellular phone. Calling 911 (emergency services) in the US is free even with a cellular phone with no service, but I would need services to contact my doctor(s), and loved ones. If I was forced to just one service, it will be the cellular service.
A home phone is well – home. In the beginning, home phone services were relatively reasonable in price as long as you didn’t get any additional features. As time went on, copper line phone service has gotten more expensive, and in most cases not supported at all. At leas in Allegheny County where Verizon owned the infrastructure, they will not support a moving customer, or any new customer when it comes to copper phone services. With that in mind, if one has broadband internet, then SIP or VOIP is a solution.
From 1992 – 2007 – I always had a pager. I would go into detail as to why later in this page. A pager is a little device that can receive numeric messages using a radio signal. In most cases, this will in the form of a telephone number. Also, as an added feature, one could have voicemail, and will allow you to make your own greeting. Until 2007, this was an important feature for me.
1991 – 1997
Starting out, I knew I needed to have a means of communication. I spent a few days figuring out all of the resources I would need. Also, I was on SSI at the time, and needed to keep my bills reasonable in price. However, with my ankles collapsed, a cellular phone was essential, and absolutely needed. However, during this time, the cellular phone service was analog which meant no Caller-ID, nor voicemail. The cellular line was $50/month for 50 minutes. When not using the cellular phone, it was off. If someone called me when the phone was off, the person would get a customer out of service area message. If I was on the phone when someone called, they would get a busy signal.
So how did I address my issues. Well, first, I got a home phone line. At the time, more people had a home phone than a cellular phone, so a home phone was not out of the ordinary. I paid for Caller-ID, but wasn’t going to pay for voicemail. Instead, I got a phone with a built in digital answering machine. If there was no voicemail, the voicemail will pick up on the 4th ring. If there was voicemail, it would pick up on the 2nd ring. This was designed this way to save you quarters and cellular minutes when seeing if you had voicemail. Strangely enough, my current cellular phone number that I had for a few years now is the same as my first home phone number. As with the cellular phone, if someone called me and I was on the phone, they will get a busy signal.
As mentioned, I had a pager. This always stayed with me, and always on (versus the cellular phone). I can usually go about a month on a AA battery. The pager had a voicemail service as well. I didn’t want people that might have called the number by accident to know this was a pager. A person can submit the numerical message during the voicemail greeting.
So how did all of this worked out? Everyone go my home phone number. This will include doctors, friends, and family. Also, if I had to provide a telephone number for whatever the reason, they will get this number. Needless to say, if I wasn’t home – the voicemail system will collect voicemail messages. Unless I was expecting an important voicemail message – I just waited until I got home to check my voicemail. Now, very important people will get not only my home telephone number, but my pager number as well. Everyone was instructed that the pager should be used only in an emergency, or if the need to talk to me was imperative. I made sure everyone knew that my cellular phone was $1.00/minute. No one got my cellular phone number, and I had caller ID block enabled. If I was not home, and I needed to make a phone call, then I turn my phone on, make the call(s), and when finished, turn off the phone. This was for battery conservation, but also, didn’t want to hear the phone ring since I will never have picked it up.
1997 – 2000
This was a bad period in my life. I lost my residence, and at times, stay with my brother until I could acquire Section-8 services. Simply put, a residence was too much of my budget (80%+). During this time, I didn’t have a home phone number. At this point, I gave every one my pager number and told them this was a voicemail line. Those that needed to know would be informed that this is a pager.
I still had a cellular phone, but thankfully – this was a digital service. I had caller ID, and voicemail. And while rates were cheaper, I still didn’t want to give my cellular number to everyone. Obviously, if I was technically homeless, I couldn’t afford to spend more money than necessary. When I lived with my brother, I contributed about half of my income to my portion of rent. While I loved my brother, I didn’t like the living arrangements I had. They sometimes had a home phone line, and when they did, I would use their home phone to make phone calls, and therefore saved on my cellular minutes. Still, since my brother wasn’t consistent in keeping a home phone line, I gave everyone my pager number when I needed to give a phone number out.
2000 – 2007
I finally received my Section-8 voucher, and was able to look for an apartment of my own. It took about 6 months to find not only a place that would take Section-8, but the unit had to be on the first floor, or there needed to be an elevator. Once I found my apartment, and moved in – I acquired home phone service again. I was back to having 3 phone numbers. Around this time there was a company called Grand Central which offered a smart forwarding solution. This company was bought by Google whom renamed it Google Voice. I then gave everyone the Google Voice number which was the primary number they would call. I still kept the cellular number private, and people would see my home phone number when I called from home. Still, the important people knew that they should call the Google Voice number which will automatically ring both my cellular and home phone number. Non-important people will just ring my home phone.
2007 – 2020
T-Mobile offered a service called UMA. Basically, UMA was the predecessor to WiFi Calling. T-Mobile gave me 500 minutes, and unlimited UMA calling. I still had my Google Voice number, but bought a RIM Blackberry 8320 which supported T-Mobile’s UMA calling. In addition, downloading a Google Voice app allowed me to display my Google Voice number when making an outgoing call. This made my life easier, and I didn’t have to give people a second phone number. Google Voice also supported SMS which meant it functioned like a cellular phone number.
Eventually, cellular providers started offering unlimited calling which was good because I had to replace my 8320 with a new Android G2 which didn’t support UMA. Obviously, I had a number of different phones during this period. But once unlimited calling was a reasonable option, I opted for that. Eventually when that happened, I cancelled my pager line. This meant no home, and no pager – leaving me with just a cellular line. If I needed to change my cellular phone number, I would make those changes in the backend with Google Voice.
2020 – 2024
Two things of note happened in 2020. First, I was surprised to acquire my first home phone number when I changed service providers. Needless to say, I will be keeping this phone number. I also decided to try to get a home phone line again. This will be a just in case that I wouldn’t have good reception in my apartment, or the battery was too low. I eventually got a toll-free number which will allow those with a limited number of minutes to be able to call for free. Also, during this time, I switched from Android to iPhone. The reason of this is I acquired a Mac PC, and the iPhone worked perfectly with the Mac. While there are some lacking features, and some things I am not happy about, there is no perfect OS, and this holds true for phone OSes.
Also, Google completely messed up their Google Voice service. Since this was the number I gave everyone, I ported out the number to a cheap cellular carrier which meant that I had 2 phone numbers on my phone. Since my phone was dual-SIM, I was able to carry just one phone. Once I was satisfied that everyone was calling my primary cellular number (the number I have now), I cancelled the service that had my old Google Voice number.
I also started offering a Virtual Card File which is always available on my website. This .vcf will provide a local phone number as I had numbers in a few other countries, and my cellular phone number since this will be the phone number I will likely call back on. However, with the international numbers not being used, and attempting to reduce phone costs, I dropped all of my international numbers.
2025+
Right now, I have 4 phone numbers that I provide to the public. All of these numbers serves a role. For making outgoing calls, I have my home phone, and my cellular phone with me preferring the cellular phone for most calls. I have no more international numbers, and just one .vcf. In the end, this makes things simple. I am hoping that my carrier will offer RCS for iPhones. While I don’t use SMS often, I would eventually want RCS as this will be the successor to SMS once KaiOS supports RCS (my opinion).
For those that would want to know what phone numbers I have, it is the following:
- Cellular
- Fax Receive
- Home
- Voicemail Only
You can visit the site to learn more about these numbers, and their roles.