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A Wake Up Call for How Dependent I am on my UK Phone Number.... And a (sort of) solution!

avatar of @revisesociology
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Zebedee
@revisesociology
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2 min read

My UK phone company recently texted me to say they'd be suspending my service in a few weeks because I'm in breach of their 'fair use abroad policy' - which states you can only use their service abroad for 60 continuous days in any 12 month rolling period.

I guess I've been lucky that I've been able to use it for 18 months here in Portugal.

I was initially in something of a panic about this, thinking immediately of Whatsapp being linked to that number, several accounts which have my phone as the second layer sign in security and simply all the people and companies who have this number in their contact details.

I've had this number for well over a decade, and I'd be looking at several days of solid work 9-5 to to trawl through ALL my contacts and make sure everyone had my new number, not to mention that some online services might not recognise a Portuguese number as a verification destination for logging in (Binance was fine, that's the first thing i changed!)

I was contemplating going back to Britain and getting a new contract - I pretty much immediately cancelled my existing UK contract and got my PAC code, thinking it wouldn't be too bad to go back for a week and make a switch.

But before that I put a query out on Facebook and got some interesting responses...

Several people saying all of the following companies had served them fine in Portugal for a year to three years, no problems:

  • Vodafone
  • Three
  • GiffGaff
  • O2
  • Tesco Mobile.

And just as many warning me that opening up a new contract now would have different T and Cs, and a few saying they'd had the same as me around the same sort of time being abroad.

The most useful sources I got were for 'expat apps' which are sim free but allow you to transfer your UK number over and you can use the app just as a UK mobile - crucially you can get those verification texts if you need them!

One such service is Devyce, another is Swytch - the former is more expensive but has much better reviews - and even that is only $9.99 a month for a full number transfer.

I'm going to trawl through my most frequently used applications and see if I can transfer some of the authentications at least to Google Authenticator and/ or my Portuguese number then I'll switch over the Devyce.

I've also got a friend on the case buying me a cheap Tesco pay as you go Sim and posting it to me, just in case that app doesn't work - £10 as a back up is worth it.

For my contacts I think I can easily just switch over Whatsapp to my Portugues number, that shouldn't be a problem!

I'm glad I found a solution, but it's a wake up call about how dependent I am on just one number!

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