This may end up being a bit convoluted, so I will do my best to keep it as short as possible and to the point.
I have a US number with Google Fi, have had it for about 8 years.
This is the only reason why I still maintain that one Google account. The benefit is that I only use it when I am in the United States, and when I’m not, I just pause the service and don’t get charged.
However, I feel the string need to completely eliminate Google from my life permanently.
Does anyone know of a service similar to this one? It can be an MVNO or VOIP for my phone, and I would like to port my number as well. I found “phoner”, but I can’t pause the service, so I would be stuck paying a bill I don’t use as much or loosing my number.
If the service is private (not to be confused with anonymous, of course) even better.
Lots of VoIP services offer plans (usually pay-per-minute) so cheap that you might not need a “park” feature. A few reputable ones that serve North America: Callcentric, VoIP.ms, Anveo.
EDIT:
The cost to keep your number on such a service can be less than 1 USD per month, with all-electronic billing that allows you to pay from anywhere that has internet. With that price and convenience, many people find parking/pausing unnecessary.
If having to regularly pay any amount is the problem, note that prepaid accounts let you leave a balance in your account and not be bothered to take any action until it runs out.
When looking for pricing info, bear in mind that a phone number is commonly called a DID (America) or DDI (Europe).
Yeah, voipms is great and there’s a sms app for Android available on fdroid. It really is so cheap you won’t need to pause it, and works fine with linphone or whatever sip app you want to use.