Second Number for Call & Text

Review by eFreeware

The idea behind Second Number for Call & Text is simple enough: your phone can hold more than one number, and the one people dial does not have to be the one tied to your name. Dingtone Phone has built an app around that, letting you call and text from a number you choose rather than the SIM in your handset. It has been on Google Play since July 2013 and has passed 50 million installs with a 4.3 average across more than 676,000 ratings, which tells me this is not a niche experiment but something a lot of people have folded into their daily routine.

That routine is the interesting part. A second line is only useful if there is a reason to keep two, and the reasons here are practical rather than glamorous: selling a couch on a classifieds site, registering for a service you may not keep, calling family abroad without paying roaming rates, or simply not wanting your real number in a stranger's contact list. The app is free to download, carries ads and offers in-app purchases, so the cost question comes up early and is worth understanding before you commit to a number.

I would place this in front of anyone who regularly hands out a phone number they would rather not hand out. If that describes you, the rest of this review walks through what the app does, where the money goes, and how well the whole arrangement is likely to hold up.

One line for the people you do not fully trust

The most obvious job for a spare number is keeping your personal one out of circulation. The app offers temporary local numbers from more than 20 countries, with the US, UK and Canada among the markets named, and you can hold several numbers at once rather than swapping one for another. That matters if you sell things online, look for work, date, or travel and want a local-looking number without buying a local SIM.

What appeals to me here is the exit. A number you use for a marketplace listing or a dating profile can be abandoned once the messages turn unwanted, and your real line never appears in the conversation at all. The developer pitches this as a privacy tool, and the mechanics support that framing: the number is the buffer, and the buffer is disposable.

The trade-off is that you are now managing two inboxes instead of one. Calls and texts to the spare number arrive in the app, so you have to remember to check it. For occasional use that is a minor annoyance; for anything you rely on daily, it is a habit you have to build deliberately.

Verification codes without giving up your real number

A second number is also handy for the sign-up screens that demand a phone number before they will let you in. The app is built to receive voice and SMS verification codes on a temporary number, and the developer lists WhatsApp, Facebook and Tinder among the services people use it for. The same logic applies to e-commerce accounts, delivery services and online ads where you would rather not leave your own number behind.

This is the use case I would expect to drive most downloads. A number you can retire once a sign-up is done solves a real problem, and it does so without an extra device or a contract. The app also lets you register on messaging and dating platforms and then drop the number if it starts attracting unwanted contact, which is a cleaner escape than trying to get your details removed from a service later.

One caveat sits with the user rather than the app: keep your expectations calibrated accordingly. Treat the spare number as a tool that usually works rather than a guarantee, and keep your expectations calibrated accordingly.

Calling abroad and calling in groups

The other half of the app is ordinary telephony. You can call mobile and landline numbers in more than 200 countries and regions, and the developer describes the rates as low, with credits bought inside the app to pay for them. Calls to the US and Canada are described as available in large volumes, which suggests that corridor is the one most users care about.

Calls run over Wi-Fi or cellular data on Dingtone's own VoIP network, which the app says works even when cellular reception is poor. I would read that as the core promise of the app: a call that does not depend on the signal bars in the corner of your screen. Whether the network lives up to that billing is the kind of thing only your own usage will settle.

The app supports conference calls with up to eight people and group messaging with more than a hundred. None of these are unusual on their own; together they make the app feel like a full communications client rather than a thin wrapper around a number.

What you need before the first call

Setup is lighter than a traditional phone contract. There is no contract to sign, no extra device to carry, and the app is built to run on the phone you already own. You choose a number from the countries on offer, and the app handles calls and texts from there. If you plan to call internationally, you buy credits within the app rather than paying a monthly line rental.

The practical requirement is a data connection. Calls and texts travel over Wi-Fi or cellular data. That is the same constraint any VoIP service carries, and it is worth being clear about before you make the spare number the only way anyone can reach you.

The app is free to download and supported by ads, with in-app purchases available. Those purchases are how credits for international calling are bought, and the app presents them as affordable rather than free. I would go in expecting to pay something if international calls are the reason you are here, and to see advertising regardless.

The people this suits

The clearest fit is someone who gives out a phone number often and would prefer not to give out their own. That covers sellers on classifieds sites, people job hunting, anyone dating through apps, and travelers who want a local-looking number without hunting down a SIM card. If your week involves handing your number to strangers, the app is doing a job you currently do badly.

A second group is people who call abroad regularly and resent what their carrier charges for it. The combination of a data-based call and credits bought in the app is aimed squarely at that frustration, and the long list of supported countries suggests the developer has built for a wide range of destinations rather than one corridor.

The third group is lighter: anyone who wants a buffer number for sign-ups and verification codes and does not mind checking a second inbox to find them. What ties all three together is a willingness to manage two numbers instead of one. The app is not trying to replace your carrier line; it is trying to sit beside it.

The app's rating history is a reasonable signal here. The most recent update is described only as performance improvements, which is the kind of maintenance note that tells you the app is still being looked after without telling you much else.

A spare line worth keeping for the right jobs

Second Number for Call & Text does one thing well and a handful of related things competently. It gives you a number that is not yours, lets you call and text from it over data, and lets you walk away from it when the reason for having it is gone. For privacy-minded selling, dating, job hunting and sign-ups, that is genuinely useful, and the scale of the install base suggests plenty of people agree.

The costs are straightforward: ads on a free app, credits to buy if you want to call internationally, and a second inbox to monitor. None of those are hidden, and none of them undermine the core idea. What you are really deciding is whether the convenience of a disposable number is worth the small ongoing overhead of managing it.

If your number only ever goes to people you know, the app will sit unused on your home screen. If it goes to strangers, it is worth having.

What's new in version 6.5.4

1. Various performance improvements.