What is a cloud phone number in South Africa, and how does it work?

Most of us grew up believing a phone number and a SIM card are the same thing. They are not. A SIM card is only one place a number can live. A cloud phone number lives in an account instead, the way your email does, and you reach it through an app.

Here is what that means in practice. You sign in to the Ukutel app on your phone and your South African number is there. People call it like any other number, and it rings on your phone. When you call out, the other person sees that number. The call travels over the internet, so it works on Wi-Fi or on mobile data, at home or in another country.

Three things change when a number moves from plastic to the cloud:

• It is not tied to one phone. Sign in on a second phone or a tablet and the same number rings there too. A lost or broken phone no longer means a lost number.
• It is not tied to one place. Wherever you have internet, your South African number works. Travellers and people living abroad keep the number their family already knows.
• The airtime belongs to the account. You load Cloud Airtime, and you spend it by the second. Airtime you top up does not expire.

You do not have to give anything up to try it. Your SIM card and your mobile network stay exactly as they are. The cloud number sits beside them, as a second line that happens to cost less to call from.

Ukutel is a small South African company. We cannot out-advertise the big networks, and we are not trying to. We would rather show you: the trial is R25 (about $1.52) for five days, with real airtime, on your own phone.