Hi All,
I’m heading overseas (NZ specifically) for an extended period. I’ll get a new number when I’m over there, but I’d still like to be able to receive SMS messages sent to my Australian mobile number (especially for 2FA) - however, international roaming is very expensive and I know as soon as I stick my Australian SIM card in my phone it’ll download a million updates and I’ll get a thousand dollar bill for the data 
What suggestions have you got? Is it possible to get a NZ number while still in Aus?
I was thinking of getting a cheap mobile plan and setting up that sim in an IoT Arduino Shield (I’ve got one of these already), and setting that up at a firend/relatives place to forward any SMS’s to my new NZ number - the catch 22 is I don’t know my NZ number yet so not sure how to do it! (And I’d set up a voicemail message telling people to text me if it’s urgent).
Alternatively do you know of any phone plans or services that could do this?
I’m all ears for ideas! 
Cheers,
Ollie
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Hi Oliver,
A Pi Zero running a VNC server would allow for remote connection so you can insert a forwarding number
And in the realm of microcontrollers a Particle Argon should work. The functionality of remote programming and a lowish price point with both options!
Liam.
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Hmm yeah, good idea! I actually bought a Pi Zero WH today thinking along the same lines (but also because I noticed Core only have ~80 left and there’s a note on the product page saying that might be all they’ve got til Q1 2022!)
The silicon chip shortage is really coming down in earnest now!
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HOliver
I have done similar on several trips to the UK fairly simply. Taken a phone with me (sometimes an old discarded one) and purchased a prepaid SIM card on arrival. Then advised all the contacts that matter of my number while away. Nothing as exotic as transferring SMS messages.
Don’t know about that. An alternative would be to get a contact in NZ to purchase a prepaid SIM and either post it to you or advise you of the number before you leave AUS. That may be possible.
Cheers Bob
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Put your AU SIM card in an old android phone. Install IFTTT to transfer text to email. Should work in theory but I did have a couple of problems. Latency was sometimes too long and it seemed to stop working after a number of days. It is a bit of a pain that you can’t forward TXT messages like you forward phone calls.
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You can just use Google Voice for calls over wifi. I think you can port your number to Google Voice if you want to keep your number.
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I had too much to do and ran out of time to set this up before I left, but I’m going to see if I can get it working here in NZ anyway for the challenge. I might be able to drop it off in Aus sometime in the next year anyway.
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