RingBranch

How RingBranch can help T-Mobile MyFaves users

As alluded to earlier, if you are one of the more than 3 million T-Mobile MyFaves' subscribers, RingBranch may be of great interest to you.   

Before we explain why this is the case, let's review the MyFaves plan.  If you chose one of the MyFaves plan from T-Mobile, you get:

• Unlimited nationwide calling to any five numbers on any network, even landlines

So, why then  might you be interested in RingBranch if you are a MyFaves user? Because, simply by choosing your unique RingBranch phone number as 1 of your 5 MyFaves, you can effectively increase the number of people that you can enjoy unlimited nationwide calling to.   Remember, when you list your RingBranch number as 1 of your MyFaves, any call to or from that number does not go against your plan minutes.   So, you can call your RingBranch number from your mobile phone, reach your RingBranch Auto-Attendant, and connect to 1 of up to 100 contacts that you can maintain in RingBranch.  When you talk, since the initial call was placed to a phone number within your MyFaves, the call should be counted as a MyFaves phone call.

Additionally, you can give your contacts your RingBranch phone number and ask that they call you on this number. (Remember, when they call your RingBranch number, they will get you. When you call your RingBranch number, you get your Personal Auto-Attendant to connect to your contacts. ) If you have your RingBranch number listed as a MyFave, then any phone call FROM that phone number will be treated as a MyFave call as well.

To give this a try, first sign up for a free beta RingBranch account   Then, edit your MyFaves by logging into  the T-Mobile website or through your mobile phone.  Input your new RingBranch number as 1 of your new MyFaves and give your new MyFave a name.  ( I call mine "Bob" just so I can easily find it.)  You should be able to verify that this is working by looking at your detailed billing records--you will see that calls to your RingBranch number have been counted as a MyFave call.

Let us know if you have any questions on any of this.

T-Mobile and MyFaves® are trademarks or registered trademarks of T-Mobile USA, Inc. Neither this website nor the RingBranch service are, or have been, endorsed by, and are not affiliated with any of the third party companies mentioned on this site. RingBranch is a service mark of CallBranch, LLC.

What Phone Number Will You Get from RingBranch?

When you sign up for a RingBranch account, we provide you with your own unique phone number.  This phone number is just like any 7-digit phone number that you are accustomed to using.  Currently, all of the phone numbers that we provide are within the state of Georgia and thus have area codes from this area.  For example, you are likely to get a phone number such as:

(678) 555-1234   or (770) 555-1234 

(NOTE: These are just example numbers--each of our users gets his/her own unique and different phone numbers)

In the near future, we will be able to provide you with a phone number within a specific area code that you request so it will not be a long distance call for you to call into your Personal Auto-Attendant.  Most mobile carriers and many land line providers provide free long distance so hopefully this IS NOT currently an issue for you. 

For example, my sister in Seattle calls into her RingBranch Auto-Attendant dialing a 678 area code number from a 206 area code number.  It's long distance (obviously) but it doesn't cost her anything extra since her mobile plan doesn't charge extra for long distance--most don't these days!

Let us know if you have any questions on this.

RingBranch Service further explained

While our website hopefully does a decent job of explaining "what is RingBranch", I thought it would be helpful to further clarify what we do.

What we Do:

• Provide you with a new and unique phone number--we call this your RingBranch number. It's a regular US-based phone number with format: (area code)-xxx-xxxx.
• When you call your RingBranch number, you reach what we call your RingBranch Personal Auto-Attendant.   The RingBranch Personal Auto-Attendant will then connect you with any of your contacts that you have entered through our website. 
• You can call into your RingBranch Personal Auto-Attendant from any of your phones, whether it be your mobile, home, work, etc. And, you can use a regular cell phone, land line, or VOIP phone—you don’t have to be on the Internet or on our website to use it.    
• If you want, you can give your RingBranch phone number to your contacts.  When they call you on this number, one of your phones will ring.  You designate which one(s) from our website.   It's important to note that when they call your RingBranch number, they will not get your Auto-Attendant.
• The RingBranch service includes the actual time that you are talking on the phone, whether that be local or long distance.   During the beta, this is provided for free. Once we transition to commercial release, we will provide a healthy serving of all you can eat minutes for one low fixed cost.

So, why do you need a service like this?

• If you are one of the estimated 3 million T-Moblle MyFaves subscribers or one of the Alltel Circle of Friends users, then this is could be very useful to you. We will post more about this later but for the time being--think of the benefits of having your RingBranch number as 1 of your 5 MyFaves. All of a sudden, instead of 5 MyFaves, you really would have over 100! 
• It can help save you time if you keep all of your contact’s phone numbers programmed into your mobile phone but you still use your landline from home in order to conserve your cell phone minutes (268 million Americans have landlines)
• In the event that your cell phone is lost or stolen, RingBranch can serve as a backup of your most frequently dialed phone numbers.  In fact, it is like a virtual SIM card—you don’t have to worry about storing your phone numbers on your phone or SIM card. 

Let us know if you have any questions on any of this.  And, as always, please send us your feedback.

RingBranch Dial by Name Directory using a Blackberry phone

With RingBranch, when you want to talk to one of your contacts, you simply pick up your cell, home, or work phone and call into your RingBranch number to access your Personal Auto-Attendant.  Your Auto-Attendant will prompt you to enter the extension of the person you are trying to call followed by the # sign OR to press * (star) for a dial by name directory.

If you chose the dial by name directory, the Auto-Attendant will ask you to enter the first three letters of the person's first or last name.  This is hopefully pretty straightforward as most of us do this regularly when navigating a company's auto-attendant. 

But we have had a few questions about how to "spell out" letters if using a BlackBerry phone.  On the Blackberry, the letters don't correspond correctly to the numbers like on a regular phone. 

But Blackberry does have a way to allow you to "spell" something with your keypad (a name for example).  You hold down the ALT key while typing the letters required and the Blackberry will dial the appropriate tone for the letter being pressed.

For example, let's say that you have a contact named "Sam Jones" in your RingBranch contact directory. If you wanted to spell out "Sam" from the dial by name directory, then you would simply just hold the Alt key and use the multi-tap method to get the letter you want. Specifically, you would hold the Alt key and hit the "AS" key twice. Then, while you continue to hold the ALT key, once it displays the "S", hit the same key once to display the "A". Still holding the Alt key, hit the "M" key once for the M. The BlackBerry makes the translation between the letter and what it would be on a standard phone keypad.

Once you have spelled out "SAM", then RingBranch will ask if you would like to connect to Sam Jones and presto, you are on your way!

In case you don't know, the Alt key is the one at the bottom left of the more modern Blackberrys. See the image below for further clarification.

Image courtesy of MobileWirelessNews.com