We swapped our SIM cards for new ones from Hofer Telecom. Yes, Hofer is both a grocery store and a cell phone company. The plan costs \(10 a month for 15 gigs of data and unlimited calls. I’m not sure which felt better—firing AT&T or Comcast. For reference, cable internet here is \)39 a month for 100 gigabits.
Now we have these strange (to us) phone numbers that start with +43, the Austrian country code. To stay reachable, we also kept our U.S. numbers by porting them to Google Voice. It’s a cool system: you can transfer any AT&T, Verizon, or other carrier number to Google Voice, and it will ring through the Google Voice app on your phone. So technically, you can call us like we never left. Sort of.
To port the numbers, I logged into each person’s Google account—Alison, Max, Zoe, and mine—on my laptop. I did this while tethered to Alison’s iPhone hotspot, which was still on AT&T at the time. It worked well, except when Google Voice made an authorization call to her phone. The call dropped my connection, forcing me to tether to my phone instead. Then, to finish the process for my and Zoe’s numbers, I had to tether back to Alison’s phone. It was like a game of technological ping-pong.
By the time I got through three of the four numbers, it was late, and I decided to wait to port Max’s number until the next day. Fatal mistake.
The next day, with three of our numbers successfully ported to Google Voice, we switched to the Hofer SIM cards and Austrian numbers. But Max’s number was still stuck in limbo.
When I tried to port his number later, my laptop was tethered to my iPhone’s Austrian number. Google Voice, in its infinite wisdom, refused to cooperate. After some digging, I discovered that Google Voice doesn’t trust international internet connections—likely an anti-fraud measure. I asked my brother in the U.S. to try from American soil, but by then, Google had flagged Max’s number as compromised, hacked, garbage, kaputski.
So now, anyone can call or text me, Zoe, or Alison using our U.S. numbers. But poor Max? His friends will have to use WhatsApp or another app to reach him. Sigh.
Maybe it’s for the best. The few times Alison and I tried Google Voice, we were annoyed by the unwelcome lady-bot that interrupts calls. On the dialing end, she asks to record your name. On the receiving end, she asks if you want to accept the call. By comparison, WhatsApp just connects the call seamlessly. So, it looks like we’ll be using WhatsApp most of the time anyway.
And who knows? Maybe someday we’ll even memorize our Austrian numbers. Or maybe not.
Lady-bot has been silenced, thanks to Jacob! Much better now.