So I’ve been using FreePBX for years, but lately my truck billing has been getting big. One thing I’ve always wondered was whether there was a way to forward a call to my cell phone in such a way so as not to incur per-minute charges once the call is forwarded. Right now, with my cell phone listed as one of the ring group’s extensions, I end up paying per-minute charges to my SIP trunk provider for the whole call.
Call forwarding is always two channels, one incoming and one outgoing. There isn’t a way around it. (Unless you setup call forwarding on your provider’s side)
Also, define “billing has been getting big” …You may want to go shopping for cheaper providers.
When you need to receive calls on your mobile, if you are almost always in a location with good Wi-Fi or LTE coverage, you could use a SIP app, which would have no per minute charges (provided your mobile account has a sufficient data allowance). If coverage is poor, you could experience unusably bad voice quality, though you could of course call your contact back with a regular mobile voice call.
Otherwise, a different trunking provider may be less expensive. What is your current cost per minute for these calls? What country are you in? Who is your mobile operator?
I forward my calls to my mobile through Voipcheap (https://www.voipcheap.co.uk/) and that costs me 2 pence plus UK VAT at 20% which I think is pretty reasonable?
Though they usually have the cheapest rates (and often excellent quality), I’m not much of a fan of Betamax/Dellmont, because they are always shuffling rates around, and will not allow you to send a caller ID that’s not yours.
If you want to stay with them, I believe that https://www.cosmovoip.com/ is currently cheapest to UK mobile at £ 0.004 / min. See rate comparison at BETAMAX price comparison. DELLMONT price comparison. VOIP price comparison. .
Or, for something dependable with decent support, check out https://www.voxbeam.com/ . Rates vary by carrier; Platinum route to the major UK mobile operators is ~$0.008 / min., with 1 second billing. No restriction on outbound caller ID, so when forwarding you can pass the original caller’s number. They give you a small trial credit at signup.
That’s is a pretty cheap rate. The Voipcheap deal also includes 300 minutes per week for 3 months after I buy credit that gives me free calls to UK land lines, US landlines, Us mobiles and many other destinations. Difficult to tell with all the variables but I have always judged that as I call the US for about an hour and half a week the deal probably works fine.
What all these rates do show is the standard UK landline to mobile rates of around the 12p connection charge + 12p per minute without a call package are a total rip off !!
The way Ofcom has structured the pricing of such calls is unlike anything elsewhere in the world, ‘mobile’ calls are “shared cost” and as the UK carriers are charging excessive rates, so must every carrier pay them their pound of flesh, EU numbers are cheaper, so get one, (oops, never mind, too late 
)
Here an example of their double-talk
I’m spending about $50 a month for my calls. I use Flowroute and pay $0.005 per minute. I was hoping that there was a way to forward a call to my cell phone so that the call would no longer be going through my trunk and I could work off my unlimited cell phone minutes. I still want to keep my FreePBX going, for all of the SIP phones, IVR, ring groups etc. I was just hoping to cut down on the connection time by offloading that to the cell phone.
I didn’t know if there was a zero-channel way to forward a call, rather than a two-channel.
I’m in the US, using Flowroute at $0.005 per minute. The SIP approach doesn’t do anything for me. I already have SIP phones. I was wondering if there was a way to foward where the entire call was removed from the server and continued directly to my unlimited-plan cell phone.
What mobile device are you using? Which SIP app(s) did you try? What problems did you have (unreliable, poor voice quality, doesn’t integrate with car Bluetooth, etc.)?
Take a look at AnveoDirect for inexpensive termination to US mobiles. They give you a small credit at signup so you can test without making a payment.
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