Pros and Cons of Dual-SIM in a company phone

Hey everybody, I’m having this discussion with T-Mobile Austria (:flag_de: ; :flag_gb: below):

https://twitter.com/StefaBrand/status/724980535592910848

https://mobile.twitter.com/StefaBrand/status/725226338366398464

https://mobile.twitter.com/StefaBrand/status/725241722695983104

In English it’s basically a discussion why they don’t mention Dual-Sim in their business blog. I think they should make the Fairphone 2 tasty for companies advertising Dual-SIM. Now I’m asking you what the pros and cons of Dual SIM in a company phone are.

Edit: :flag_de: Ich habe auch direkt beim T-Mobile-Blog kommentiert.

Feel free to add your ideas below the line (this is a #wiki, use the green pencil above to edit this post): :slight_smile:


#Pros

  • You can use different sims cards depending on your location
  • As above, better reception opportunities if you have different opperators on the sims
  • When making business calls, the private line is automaticaly busy.
  • Less environmental impact with one phone instead of two
  • Only one phone to carry around
  • If your company has flatrate data plan you could remove your own data plan. (This, of course, applies on all dual SIM combinations, not just company combinations. Also this means that your employer is able to spy on your data usage if he/she would like to)

#Cons

  • Normally a company wants full control over “their” phones. A phone with a dual sim is often used with “private” apps and also in a lot of different locations (bars, vacation). From a company standpoint, these are risks. It depends on what kind of data is really “on” the phone in the end.
  • A bit more stressful since you can’t leave the work phone at work
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Just wondering about that: You can as well deactivate one SIM when leaving work. So I wouldn’t see this as a problem.

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Good point! It was my intention to collect arguments against the cons! :slight_smile:

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While I mostly agree I have to say that if you use it as a company phone as well as private you probably have a mail client set up with a company email account, and this is not as easy to shut down as the SIM itself. I know, just remove auto updates, but then you might miss incoming emails during the workday. Maybe this would be possible to setup as different profiles?

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I use the Fairphone for quite some time for work and home. For me the dual-sim is ideal because I never forget my home- or workphone. Carrying two phones makes that you sometimes leave one phone behind.

I configured the phone to always ask which SIM it should use for callingor SMS, as I would otherwise sometimes forget and call a business number from my home SIM or vice versa. The extra tab has become routine now.

I had some difficulties with WhatsApp, which I use on my home SIM and need to use on my work SIM. For that I installed Disa which allows me to run WhatsApp for another number. There are other tricks, but this seemed to be the most straightforward.

I had no need to disable the work SIM, but it can be easily done.

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Hi @Stefan,

after using my FP1U for several month as my private and my company phone I would say there are definitely more pros than cons (see your list above).
Especially that you only need one phone is a big plus!

The only things that you have to be careful are:

  • never use your private number to do business calls (especially if you work in the IT support field…). This can happen if you are in a hurry and choose the wrong SIM.
  • clean separation of private/business contacts
  • switch off the business SIM if you are at home or on holiday
  • if the FP is a company phone and not your own, consider what private data (pictures, data…) is stored on that phone.
  • if the FP is your private phone consider what company data (emails etc) is allowed to carry around (read your NDAs).
  • in any case protect the data of your phone (pin, encryption etc.) and backup regularly :wink:
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