StarHub's 2-in-1 Line

Need one phone number for work contacts and another for close friends and family?

Now, there is a new service from StarHub which lets you have two phone lines without having to buy an extra phone or limiting your choices to dual-SIM handsets.

StarHub's 2-in-1 Line, which launched last week, offers post-paid subscribers the convenience of two phone numbers in one SIM card. To get started, users have to download the 2-in-1 Line app from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store, activate it and then choose the secondary number. This will add an extra $5.35 per month to your phone bill. It is free for the first three months if you sign up before the end of the year.

To make calls using the primary number, just call as you usually would. To make calls using the secondary number, use the app. Recipients will see either the primary or secondary number, depending on which one you used to call them.

Checking your call logs is less straightforward.

The app's call log will show only the calls made to the secondary line. Calls to both numbers will appear on the call log of your phone's default dialer. However, calls to the secondary number, which appear on the phone's main log, will have an additional 1111 prefix to differentiate them from calls to your primary number, which will appear the same as before you had a secondary number.

You can also maintain separate phone contacts for the two lines or import your entire phone address book into the app's address book.

A cool feature of the app is that it can list your voice mail messages in your voice mail log, just like how your SMS messages are displayed. To retrieve the voice mail, simply tap the one you want to listen to. This is much easier than having to call your voice mailbox and having a string of messages played back to you.

If you do not want to be disturbed by casual contacts, switch on the voice mail feature for all calls. You will still receive calls on your primary number.

Overall, the service is great, although it does require a bit of learning at the beginning. However, once you figure it out, the convenience of having two separate numbers on the same phone line is attractive.

This article was first published on Oct 8, 2014.
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