“AT&T is nearly ready to launch a feature that will allow a customer’s smartphone, tablet and other devices to share a single phone number,” Ina Fried reports for Re/code.
“The feature, now called NumberSync, is a key to making it more attractive for customers to own multiple devices with built-in wireless connections, just as it was important to offer shared data plans,” Fried reports. AT&T said it expects to launch NumberSync on an initial device ‘fairly soon’ with additional devices coming later this year.”
“Many existing smartphones will be able to support the feature through a software upgrade; the company’s goal is to work with all manufacturers to support the feature going forward in both phones and connected devices, such as tablets and watches,” Fried reports. “There won’t be a separate charge to share one number, but AT&T already charges a per-device fee, typically $5 or $10, for each device that connects to a shared data plan.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If you’re smartly all-Apple then you’ve already experienced what this will be like: One number rings on your iPhone, Mac, iPad, and/or Apple Watch and you can make and receive phone calls from any device through your iPhone, but only when they’re all on the same Wi-Fi network. AT&T’s new feature promises to liberate your devices from that shared Wi-Fi network requirement and still allow one number to work across devices. Convenient!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “David G.” for the heads up.]
Been waiting for someone to offer this feature. SOLD!
Now I can bring my iPhone 5S out of retirement when I want a slim phone in my pocket.
Is this really a new feature?
I have had multiple SIM cards for my cell phone (then it was a Nokia) and my car cell phone with the feature that the main number was shared many years before the iPhone even arrived.
It worked very well with almost any GSM cell phone for many years and later also with my iPhone and the built-in GSM phone of my Audi A7 (Diesel!).
So what is new about this? Or what am I missing from this concept?
Your data plan is your data plan.. I should be able to use it of ANY device and change when I won’t. I should be able to move my data plan to 15 different devices if I want to. I’m still paying per gig so what’s the big deal? I understand paying if you can use multiple devices at the same time, but your data is your data..
Funny, Google Voice, and Vonage do the same thing for me know.
Me know you don’t.
I’de like to see it where you can receive texts sent to your iPhone on your Mac.
On your Mac with Yosemite forward, you can get iMessages without additional software or services. Turn on iMessage in the Messages application, Preferences Accounts.
With this NumberSync, when all the setup is done, you still need a wifi connection to make a call from your secondary device, say a LTE iPad. True, the primary phone can be off and a mile away, but the IPad with LTE AND NumberSync will NOT dial a number thru the LTE connection. You have to be on some wifi network. Thus, you can’t use your iPad as a “big phone”, you still need a wifi connection! This is a big limitation!