Can I hold a phone number cheap?

[FamilyGuy]

My wife will be out of the country for the next several months. Don't want to keep paying her phone charges $20 per month (she got another phone number local to the country). Is there a better solution for this? I don't want to lose her number but at the same time don't want to pay the bill?
Is there a better carrier? I don't want any talk time or text or data.

[Padonak]

ptf

[Khaetra]

It might help if you post which carrier, what phone, etc.  Folks will need a bit more info in order to help.

ETA: I saw the $20/month.  You can go cheaper, maybe, but we still need to know what provider to see if you can port the number to another service or drop down to a cheaper plan.  I doubt you can keep a number for free.

[bacchi]

Transfer to Google Voice. The transfer will cost but it's a one-time fee. When she returns, just forward the Voice number to a new mobile number, or transfer it back.

[Paul der Krake]

Plenty of options a quick internet search away:
https://www.google.com/search?q=phone+number+parking

[tralfamadorian]

Transfer to Google Voice. The transfer will cost but it's a one-time fee. When she returns, just forward the Voice number to a new mobile number, or transfer it back.

+1

Ting is also only $6/line.

[FamilyGuy]

It might help if you post which carrier, what phone, etc.  Folks will need a bit more info in order to help.

ETA: I saw the $20/month.  You can go cheaper, maybe, but we still need to know what provider to see if you can port the number to another service or drop down to a cheaper plan.  I doubt you can keep a number for free.

The phone is iphone 6s. We are using Ultramobile carrier.https://www.ultramobile.com/

[FamilyGuy]

Transfer to Google Voice. The transfer will cost but it's a one-time fee. When she returns, just forward the Voice number to a new mobile number, or transfer it back.

Thank you. I will check it out.

[FamilyGuy]

Plenty of options a quick internet search away:
https://www.google.com/search?q=phone+number+parking

Never knew that this term called phone number parking. Thank you so much.

[Daley]

Probably one of the cheapest places to park that number would be US Mobile, using a custom plan of 40 SMS messages for $1.50/month + taxes and a $4 starter kit. Depending on the time out of country, probably cheaper to equal to going the Google Voice route, without getting Google further up in all your communications business. Then when she gets back, you could just stay put with them and likely get cheaper service with better customer support by modifying the existing plan and keep rolling.

There's also porting to a VoIP provider like VOIP.ms, which would be $8.95 to port the number into, but $0.85/month plus for pay per minute, and you could forward the calls anywhere (or just send all calls to voicemail which could be delivered by email), and still continue to handle SMS messages in the mean time, either through their website or email as well. Just like GV, but without being the product as you're actually paying for the service, and still likely cheaper depending on the time out of country... and quite a bit cheaper than official "parking" services.