Setting up a US phone number with Skype for use overseas

Two Digital Gypsies Rating – 1.5 Stars

There’s gotta be an easier way!! We would like to have a US address and a US phone number for business purposes even though we will be living in the UK, such as for banking and for online passive income sources. We can use our son’s mailing address in Salt Lake City, especially since we are not expecting a large amount of important mail. Our son could scan important mail documents he does receive and email them to us.  Most important communications we will receive online.

However, we need access to a US phone number that will connect to our computers wherever we are, or to our smart phones. We thought we would get it set up ahead of time, so we could work out the glitches.

I did some searches online, but some of the systems people were using required a different level of technological sophistication then what I have (involving setting up complicated relay systems, VPNs, etc). So, since I already use Skype, I thought I would try getting a Skype number, which I could get for 3 months. My cost was $18 for three months. You can choose a “local” number, in the area of your choice. So I choose a Salt Lake City number, which is where I currently live,  so that friends or business contacts could call that number, and it would be free to them. So far so good. If I have a US business that needs to call us on a local number, it will now come through to me on Skype, wherever I am, either on my computer if I are connected to wifi, or to my smart phone. So the plan works for the specific need for which I set it up. The caller can leave a message if I am not available, which I could receive on my computer or on my smart phone Skype app.

However, I can’t use that line myself to make a call — so if I luck out and receive the call from the States right when they call then I won’t have any extra costs, besides the cost for the Skype line. But if I need to call them back, I will have to use my regular phone line, incurring the costs of an international call. Then I tried to see if I could text. It didn’t work. I then bought $10 worth of Skype credit. I could now send a text for a cost (about $.11 for a text to my husband’s phone) but then he couldn’t reply. My next step was to set up my caller ID on Skype to show my cell phone number, so the recipient might be able to reply to my text, but at that point we might start incurring fees again since the reply will not be going through Skype. I haven’t worked that part out fully yet since it takes some time for the caller ID change to take effect. ARRRGHH!! Not user friendly. Can’t see how it really helps to be able to send a text if I can’t receive one back, or if it then goes to the regular phone line and incurs international fees.

Does anyone know a better way? Luckily I am only committed to this charge for three months. I give this system two stars – it does fulfill the basic need, but it is not very versatile and it is hard to figure out. I had to go through lots of forum posts, which kept telling me that yes- I can send a text but not receive one, etc. and even with reading those and help posts in Skype I still don’t really get it.

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