T-Mobile has made using a cell phone in Europe almost painless and certainly much, much less expensive. The company has just rolled out a free new feature - T-Mobile Digits - that lets a customer send and receive text messages and make and receive calls from devices other than the cell phone registered to the phone number. For example, I can use my laptop just as I would my phone. The calls and texts I send show a caller ID that makes it look like they come from my phone number. Digits lets you use this feature on up to five different devices: other phones, tablets, and computers..
The service resembles how Google Voice works, but it is included with the standard T-Mobile plans and it uses your cell phone number. I have read that T-Mobile offers the use of more numbers, so one could have two numbers on one phone. I don't know much about that feature. I think that costs extra, but being able to use my cell phone number on multiple devices is what interests me.
A few years back, I had to come up with elaborate ways to maintain communication connections and keep cell phone costs low when in Europe - plans that used a Google Voice number, forwarding all calls to voicemail, using wifi, and so on. Now, my phone just works as soon as I get off the plane. Free texts and data (albeit at slower speeds without paying extra). Phone calls at just 20 cents a minute rather than the close to $2 a minute I paid not that long ago. Wonderful. This is the way it should work.