Two mobiles syndrome

[iceking]

I as in a lot of people have the two mobile syndrome: One for work and one personal.

I rarely use the phones so am stuck with the dilemma how do I can combine them both, but without being contactable by work 24/7.

How does everyone else cope with this?

[Vicster]

I used to get round this by forwarding my work phone to my personal phone. Then when I didn't want work to be able to contact me, I'd turn off the forwarding and turn off the work mobile (or simply look to see what the number was calling, and send it to voicemail if it was work).

Only problem is, if you make a work call on your personal phone, you'll have the call billed to your personal phone, obviously.

[doesnotcompute]

I told my company that I wasn't prepared to carry around two devices plus a laptop, so they had a choice, either I ditched the work phone and they paid my bill, or I ditched my personal phone.

They were good with me ditching my personal phone.

[rezabelady]

I've seen a couple of Chinese phones with 2 SIM slots, but I think only one can be active at any time so they didn't appear to make much sense unless you were willing/able to switch to work sim only for the 9-5 and back to personal for non-working hours (although I guess you could have personal calls divert to the work number).

Actually, Docomo in Japan recently introduced a system where you can have 2 separately billed accounts (ie. work and own contract) on the same phone and can operate in dual-mode to receive contact on both or switch to either account/number independently. Of course this is of little help to you at the moment, but it is the kind of ideal solution that you'd hope UK mobile companies would pick up on!

[Kryten]

I have two, one iPhone and one BlackBerry (UK and US) and have to carry them both. Its a bit of a pain but as I've had them both for years its not too much of an issue.

The way around it typically is forward one to the other, but remember that SMS does not forward, so if you get alerted over SMS on your works phone that would not work for you.

[fayraz]

See if they will get you something like this:

http://www.samsung.com/my/consumer/detail/features.do?group=mobilephone&type=mobilephone&subtype=businessphone&model_cd=SGH-D880LKSFMG

[sjg1]

Work phone is always forwarded to personal - they don't have a problem picking up the bill for the forwarded call from their phone to mine. If I don't want to be disturbed or I'm off on holiday, I take off the forwarding.