How many people actually use their Google Voice number?
I want to completely switch over and use only my google voice number... however I can't because of one crucial feature it is missing, mms. I still use my gv number for voicemail and stuff and I want to really use all of the features it offers, but without mms I am sticking with my original verizon number and saving the hassle of telling everyone I got a new number. Maybe google will implement this soon or give us a way to use our existing numbers.
What do you guys think?
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I guess I want to use it....but don't really see the need. Still feel like I should be utilizing this. Especially for the visual voice mail. But who really leaves voice-messages anymore?
Just wondering why I would also want my work number going to my cell. Somebody show me the light.
I have been using GV as my only number for voice & SMS since I got my Droid in early December. I sent out a bunch of text messages or email asking everyone to change to my new number and I think maybe 90% have.
I use GV along with Cox's "selective call acceptance" (blocks all callers except those on a whitelist) on my land line. This pretty much gives me complete control over who calls me and how they can (or can't!) reach me.
i switched over and IF someone wants to send me a pix message, i tell them my 'other' cell number. It rarely happens.
I was gonna do this... but I decided not to just because it would be to much of a hassle for me to tell all of my contacts to call/sms this number and mms another. Google really needs to implement this to make gv fully functional.
I use GV along with Cox's "selective call acceptance" (blocks all callers except those on a whitelist) on my land line. This pretty much gives me complete control over who calls me and how they can (or can't!) reach me.
i only wanted it for the voice mail features, but a recent trip to canada showed me the great advantages, i switched off my wireless and only used my wifi and avoided ALL roaming charges, simply amazing, yea i needed to be on wifi but everywhere i went offered free wifi so i was amazed at the capability, i sent and received txts as well as phone calls, of course nothing while driving but that was ok.
The only real point I see is giving it out for emergency. Such as having this number allows you to reach my phone, my wifes phone, mothers phone, fathers phone, or my house phone.
I have started giving out the number so I can direct calls to multiple places simultaneously. With a few clicks of the mouse I can have that number ring my DROID, RAZR, home phone ... or any of the other cell phones in the house. While at work, it rings my desk phone, work cell, and DROID. Too cool!
I also use it to make calls from my home land line. I have Google Voice call my home number, then dial anywhere in the country for free. All while my DROID is free for texting, surfing, etc...
Google Voice voicemails can be downloaded as mp3 files and sent to anyone/anywhere, or retrieved from any computer than has Google access.
Lastly, I like being able to press '4' on the dialpad at any time to record the call. If someone wants to give my a phone number, address, or other info, I just press 4 and retrieve the info later. That recording also gets transcribed into a text and/or email of my choosing.
Other than that ... it sucks!
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I use it frequently. I give it to everyone now. If don't know someone, I prefer they don't have my real number. Google Voice gives me more options to control the communication. I use the call screening thing and it has saved me from conversations I'd rather not have. It's also really good for selling stuff on Craigslist.
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I use it as a "direct dial" number and have it set to ring my real office direct dial and my cell phone. It's great for working from home. I give it out to my business contacts so that I can get calls seamlessly at work and when I work from home. I have the GV dialer set to ask me whether to place a call using GV or not. When it dials with GV, it uses a local number that I originally thought would change from time to time but it turns out that it's the same number each time so I put it in my friends and family call list. Thus, outgoing calls using GV are airtime free. If you set GV to show your GV number on the caller ID and then put your GV number in your friends and family list then incoming calls to your GV number are airtime free. As a result of all this, all my business calls, both incoming and outgoing are airtime free. If you set GV so that an unanswered call to your cell number is forwarded to GV, then you get free visual voicemail. I've been able to drop my cell plan minutes as a result of GV.
Last edited by Sitting Duck; March 1st, 2010 at 10:26 PM.
my ages-old phone number is at vonage, and it immediately forwards my calls to GV which then simultaneously rings the house verizon number, the office, and the droid. If I could transfer my vonage number to GV I would, but they haven't made that possible yet
My wife uses more and more minutes each month so I finally switched to the 1400 min fam share plan. I added my google voice number as one of the 10 favorites and she now have 2x as many minutes. I think this will keep her content for a while...
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Was using it for everything but having problems the last few days with GV. Sometimes I can hear the other person, but they can't hear me. Other times, I try to call a number and the phone I am calling never rings. I call without GV and have no problems when that happens.
I use my GV number on all of my accounts (bank, credit, mortgage) and I use it for outgoing when I have to call people and places that I do not want having my cell number.
No options in poll that fit my usage. I signed up for GV a few months after it came out.. thinking it would completely change the way I made calls. It didn't. About all I use it for now is giving it to people I don't talk to frequently. Primarily used for applications of any kind, or signing up for services.
I have tried to set it up with Gizmo5/SipSorcery/Sipdroid for free calls, but it still doesn't work that well. If they ever did get it to work at least 80% of the time I would probably use it more often. I do however have it pointing to a PC based landline with the same setup, except using the Gizmo5 PC app, and it works great as a free phone.
As for the voicemail function, I chose to go with YouMail over GV as it allows for seperate greetings based on who is calling. It is also free, and works great, especially the ditchmail greetings for nuisance callers.
As for the voicemail function, I chose to go with YouMail over GV as it allows for seperate greetings based on who is calling. It is also free, and works great, especially the ditchmail greetings for nuisance callers.
GV also allows different greetings for different callers.
Last edited by AndroidsOfTara; March 2nd, 2010 at 07:37 AM.
i dont like it.
seems like there is a delay in texts
There is a delay because GV does not instantly push SMS out to your phone. The GV app periodically (I have mine set to check every 5 minutes) polls the GV servers for new SMS or voicemail.
There are two ways to have GV SMS or voicemail show up instantly on your phone.
1. Via the GV website, have it forward SMS sent to your GV number to your real number. The SMS will show up instantly in whatever messaging client you use. This will unfortunately defeat the purpose of using GV for free SMS as you'll still be using your carrier's SMS plan.
2. The better option... Via the GV website again, have it forward SMS to your gmail account. The message will instantly be pushed to your phone. You can even reply directly in the Android gmail app or the gmail website.
While I would certainly like GV SMS to be instantly pushed to my phone, I just deal with the potential 5 minute delay.
i only wanted it for the voice mail features, but a recent trip to canada showed me the great advantages, i switched off my wireless and only used my wifi and avoided ALL roaming charges, simply amazing, yea i needed to be on wifi but everywhere i went offered free wifi so i was amazed at the capability, i sent and received txts as well as phone calls, of course nothing while driving but that was ok.
You wanna tell me how you were able to make calls for free? From what I recall, GV does not have VOIP yet.
something interesting i just realized, maybe google isnt ready for mms, google talk doesnt support any kind of attachments also, maybe it has nothing to do with it, just a correlation i noticed
I use my GV Number for the following things so far...
1) Texting- eliminated my texting plan for my phone
2) Voice Mail- love the visual voice mail even though it does not translate it well (alot of fun reading, then listening to see how wrong it was... I have gotten so I can read it and know what was actually said because the same errors occur)
3) For anyone I know that is not on Verizon I give them my GV number to call and it rings my landline and cell phone at the same time.
4) I have different voice mail messages for my different contact groups.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by almahix
Yes, answer this quickly. I am about to leave the country for a business trip and would love to have telephone service.
Not sure if it's what he's using, but I think GV + sipdroid + gizmo5 = calls over wifi.
I use it as my business number, on my resume, and if I ever have to give it out. My "real" number is for friends and family only. It's nice that the droid can blacklist numbers (only sends it straight to voicemail), but GV can block a number entirely, thus the beauty.
Last edited by esocid; March 2nd, 2010 at 11:26 PM.
Yes, answer this quickly. I am about to leave the country for a business trip and would love to have telephone service.
I can confirm that you can not place a call with wifi, if your usung a phone that can receive free incoming you could just add the number to your google voice and start the call via the web and forward it to the phone??? Otherwise I can't think of anything else.
I just got GV this past Sunday so I don't know much about how it works yet. I am curious though. I have sent/received only a few text messages this week as I am still getting my feet wet so to speak. I notice that Verizon has made note of them in my current usage though. Is that normal?
I thought I did. I did the walk through set up on GV and thought it was all checked off right. I must have missed something though. Should I have my GV number forwarding to my regular number? That may be the problem.
Oh, I think I found it under Voicemail/SMS settings. Duh. I had it checked to send SMS to my phone for all voicemails. I am so dopey sometimes.
Last edited by kokiangel; March 2nd, 2010 at 10:07 PM.
I use it as a business line.
It has great features for buisness since you can restrict what times calls are accepted and in off hours goes to my gvoice voicemail.
One of my freinds was using it exclusively on his droid till he got a N1. He is a developer and wanted to see if he could use his phone without paying a lot. It worked great for him
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To make free calls using GV, you need a Gizmo5/SipGate/any other SIP account, and the Sipdroid app on your phone. While it's not fully reliable yet, it does work every now n then. You can also set up a SipSorcery account and with the right scripting, can dial directly from your phone without having to initiate through the GV website.
As for GV doing voicemail greetings like Youmail... Youmail does it for EVERY contact.. not groups. It even greets them by name according to your contact entry. If I actually used my GV number most of the time I might try it's VM, however since I still use my verizon number.. it was easier to just have it forward to youmail. It even has a free visual voicemail styled app for the phone, whereas I don't believe GV does. I could be wrong though, but I didn't see one when I last messed with it.
Last edited by Shadowtech; March 3rd, 2010 at 03:22 AM.
A mundane question, but nevertheless...How did you switch off wireless and used only wifi?.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grecho
i only wanted it for the voice mail features, but a recent trip to canada showed me the great advantages, i switched off my wireless and only used my wifi and avoided ALL roaming charges, simply amazing, yea i needed to be on wifi but everywhere i went offered free wifi so i was amazed at the capability, i sent and received txts as well as phone calls, of course nothing while driving but that was ok.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bkfraiders7
The only real point I see is giving it out for emergency. Such as having this number allows you to reach my phone, my wifes phone, mothers phone, fathers phone, or my house phone.
A just in case so to speak.
This is how I use one of the GV numbers I have, we give it to schools etc for an emergency number as it rings all of out phones.
We also started giving it out if there is a chance of telemarketer calling later or say if we are craigslisting something so our cells dont get exploded.
I have had another I got a long time ago that I set up in the area where I grew up so all my relatives and old friends could call me toll free, that one gets used a lot, also use the VM for work so VV from my cell and desk phones in the same place.
Dont want the "one number for life" thing that grand central spoke of, i use it however it suits me.
Wow thankfully I gave that Swivel Sweeper company my GV number. They were spamming me with telemarketers, so I just went on GV, blocked them, and now I'm done.
I use it all the time. Coverage is hit-and-miss at work (in a skyscaper) so the GV number rings the office number as well.
Switching carriers was easy and number porting wasn't needed at all. In fact, I didn't want anyone to have the new number.
Call transfer is handy for ducking out during teleconferences.
Blocking unwanted callers is very helpful.
I don't MMS so the lack of it doesn't matter to me. If you want to send me a photo then email it.
Sending SMS via a PC (http://www.google.com/voice) has been handy too. My IBM Model M beats any mobile device's input method.
Voicemail transcription is hit-and-miss but generally good enough that I don't have to listen to the message. If I need to, the GV app is great for playing them or I can listen on a PC.
Last edited by takeshi; March 3rd, 2010 at 04:11 PM.
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How many people actually use their Google Voice number?
