Reserving/Maintaining Old Mobile Number

Ok, so I've got two phones: work phone and personal phone.

Most people now know to call to my work phone, and work is cool with me using it as my personal device.

Meanwhile, I'm paying $12 a month (Kitty Wireless) for a minimal plan to "save" my old number, which I like. The phone has such a small amount of data that I'm constantly having to fiddle with settings to receive txts but not use data for anything else.

Every now and then an old friend will send me a txt through the old number and since the phone is usually dead, I don't get it until weeks later. I wish there was some service that could forward those txts to my work phone.

Is there any way that I could somehow reserve this number, or "replicate" it on the internet somehow to keep from having to pay $12 a month? Would I be better just to switch to phone to a prepaid plan and buy a $40 card?

transfer it to google voice?

You can send your number into Google Voice (sending in to Goggle is known as Port-in) but I do not think you can Port-out of Google.
This is not such a big deal because of a Google Voice feature that allows you to forward the calls intended to any number you choose.

Lets says you have the phone number 412-Dik-Head and you want to keep it. You can port that number to Google Voice and once it is there people can still call Dik-Head but when they do, those calls will ring to a different number, like your current cell phone.

The video below will give you some insight into what GV can do.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/m4Q9MJdT5Ds

Before Google bought this product, it was named Grand Central since this product can do a lot of features and a lot of routing of calls.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/cOZU7BOeQ58

I ported to Google voice and then when I ported back to sprint afterwards. That's probably your best option.

In reply to mrjre42:

Well there you go. A confirmed report that you can Port-out of Google Voice.
Best of all, Google Voice is free.

Ok, what if someone sends me a text message to the 412-dik-head?

The text will forward to the other cell number.

If you use an Android phone you can decide with each call weather to call from Dik-Head or your current number. If you choose Dik-Head then the person you are calling will get the caller ID of Dik-Head.
Requires downloading the GV Ap

EDIT: it looks like there is an iPhone GV ap now too.

Can Google Voice kinda "hold" all the calls and texts? As in, no forwarding, but can I pop in there, check out who's called or texted me, and reply to them via Google Voice and Mic, for example.

In reply to pheller:

That and more. See all these videos. Each tab on the left plays a different video on another GV capability.

Neat.

Porting to Google Voice is $20. Porting out is free for those who have ported in.

pheller wrote: ..Meanwhile, I'm paying $12 a month (Kitty Wireless) for a minimal plan to "save" my old number, which I like...

If you don't go with Google, and if you don't need data (text's are not data unless it's Apple to Apple device) T-mobile has an online only option that is $4 a month for 30 min a month (a text counts as a min). You can go over, but it costs 10 cents a min / text.

Ringplus.net, free monthly plans after an initial "top up" purchase. Need to have a sprint compatible phone. I think you have to use the phone at least once every 60 days to maintain the service.

NVM