Travel and living abroad
Give your family a local number to call: staying in touch across countries
Parents and grandparents call landlines and local mobiles, not apps. A number in their country that rings on your phone lets them dial as they always have, at their local rate.
Messaging apps are wonderful for people who use them. Plenty of the people we love do not: a grandparent with a landline, a parent who calls rather than types, an aunt who will never install anything. For them, keeping in touch means dialling a number, and a foreign number with a long prefix is a barrier, in cost and in habit.
Give them a local number instead.
How it works
Second Phone lets you hold a number in another country, including the one your family lives in, on the phone you carry every day. Calls to that number travel over the internet to the app, so they ring on your phone wherever you are. To your mother, it is a local call to a local number. To you, it is an incoming call with her name on it.
Extra numbers are paid with coins for a week, a month, three months or a year, and can auto-renew from your balance, so a "family number" can be permanent. See Add another number with coins.
What they experience
They dial the number, saved in their phone under your name, exactly as they always have. It rings. You answer, or you do not and they leave a voicemail. If they text, the message arrives on the Messages tab under that number. Nothing about their side changes, which is the whole point.
What you experience
Incoming calls show the caller's name if they are in your contacts. Answer, decline, or tap Respond with SMS to send "call you back in an hour". Missed calls and voicemails appear under Recents against the family number, with a notification when they arrive. Calls you make back go from the same number, so your name comes up on their phone as the local number they know. See Answer, decline or text back an incoming call.
Receiving a call uses coins at the incoming rate for the number's country; the in-app Pricing calculator shows it. Receiving SMS is free.
Managing the time difference
If home is eight hours away, calls will arrive at odd times. Switch on voicemail for the family number and set hours that suit both ends: your evening, their morning. Outside those hours callers hear your greeting and leave a message; inside them, the phone rings. The greeting can say when you are usually free, which older relatives appreciate more than any app status.
Practical notes
- Choose a number in the same region as your family where the country has regions, so the call is as local as possible for them.
- Save them as contacts in the app so their names appear on calls and messages.
- Auto-renew the number so it never lapses; a number that stops working is a worry you do not want to explain from abroad.
Frequently asked questions
Do my parents need to install anything?
No. They call and text an ordinary number from any phone, landline or mobile. Only you use the app.
What does it cost them?
Whatever their provider charges for a local call or text to a number in their own country, which is often included in their plan.
Can I have a number in more than one country for family in different places?
Yes. Up to ten numbers can sit on one account, each in a different country if you like, and each with its own call history and voicemail.