SMS forwarding using Phone Leash

Recently, I have changed my mobile phone service provider for an offer that cannot be refused. After approximately a month, I have noticed that I was not able to receive text messages from my family from abroad. The first step was to contact the provider and ask why suddenly, after one month the service has stopped working. After a couple of days they got back to me saying that the problem is not on their side and it was a weird thing for them as well. I have also contacted my family's provider and they were useless in sorting out the problem.

I was playing with the idea of going back to my previous provider but, I realized that it would not worth it, so I have decided to look for an alternative solution. After a short research, I concluded that SMS forwarding is the solution. I was thinking that Tasker might offer the service, but it was time consuming to find a way to reply to SMS' so I gave up the idea. I did a quick search on the Internet and I found Phone Leash which  was designed especially to offer the service that I needed. It is very easy to install it and set up.

It can be downloaded from:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gearandroid.phoneleashfree&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5nZWFyYW5kcm9pZC5waG9uZWxlYXNoZnJlZSJd

It costs approx £2 but, it is well worth the money. I spare 30 pence on each SMS and I have already recovered the investment from the saving.

Once installed, there are two options:

1. Forward the SMS as SMS to a different number
2. Forward the SMS as email to an email address (in this case a data connection is necessary)

As extra options you have: Forward MMS, send notifications of low battery, set up SMS forwarding only for certain numbers and many more. 

As main advantages I could mention:

• easy way to reply to SMS', I just need to reply to the email
• a SMS' to my family costs only 10 pence compared to 40 pence with my current provider
• I can receive/reply to SMS' from the computer
• I can use the new number for online orders when I don't want to give out my real number (prevent spam)

As a main disadvantage, you need a spare phone that runs Android (it was not a problem for me since I always keep my old phone for testing).