Panama Expat Forum

Sarabi18
Joined 2018
Posts: 11

4 years ago

Porting a US phone number to Panama

4 years ago

Hi folks, I'm getting ready to move to Panama in a few weeks and this forum has been great at answering questions during the months of preparation - thanks for the useful input! One issue remaining has to do with porting my cell phone number over to Panama, and getting a US number landline for my outgoing business calls.

I already use Skype, WhatsApp and Zoom for my business, which is online. I make about 5,000 minutes of calls going out in an average month, and the vast majority of those are with clients by phone or Skype.

First question is about how to best port over my US cell number (or another US number) for use in Panama to lower the threshold of entry for new and potential clients.
I know that I can do that on Google Voice or Skype, but it will not allow texting, so for US banking transactions etc. I will need a US cell number.

My Samsung 7 worked fine in Panama before by simply changing out the SIM card and switching the settings from CDMA to GSM. I plan to buy a dual sim phone in PTY but am not sure how to handle the US phone number.

Verizon is useless overseas, so should I port my Verizon number over to T-Mobile on a pay-as-you-go plan with their sim before moving, or is there another way? I will probably use Movistar in PTY.

Second question concerns getting a landline with a US number via VOIP. Does anyone have experience with Xutel systems? They offer VOIP with US numbers in Mexico, and apparently work in Panama too.

To summarize, I want to port my cell phone number over and also get a US number for my landline, because I prefer to spend 6 hours with a headset on a landline rather than a cell phone :-).

Any input is appreciated!

Kovalenko & Vera Attorneys at Law in Panama

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