Review by pandora 
member for 11.8 years, 5090 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 19 days ago
 Outland
 Contract price not specified.  "Free service (for now)" "Absolutely no customer support, no official ATA support" "GV intends to be a PC based free VOIP service until the end of 2011"
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Update 3: I use Google Voice more and more, the service is great and it's free. Hard to beat decent VOIP for free.
Update 2: It's been a year since my last update, which is hard to believe. Google Voice still works fine with my Oibtalk devices. Had to beat free.
Update 1: I'm updating in a bit less than 6 months to synchronize all my provider reviews on a 6 month schedule. So far Google Voice has been an excellent deal, and the price has been great. The biggest problem is lack of customer support if there is a problem or if my account (and thus my phone number) were to be hacked.
Google Voice (GV) is a free VOIP service which seems intended to be PC based.
There are many numbers to choose from in my area, getting a number I liked was amazingly easy. There is no cost for Google Voice at least until the end of 2011.
Voice quality seems to vary a bit, some days it's very good, other days it isn't. If there is a change for better (or worse) I'll update this review.
My access to Google Voice is via an Obihai ATA. I pick up my phone, and can dial numbers in the U.S. Google also provides an incoming phone number, people may call me. There is no charge for the Google service, but Obihai charges $44 or $50 for their low and high end ATA's (respectively).
The google website is decent, though set up wasn't as easy as it could have been (I needed to activate Google Chat with Google Voice for some reason). Google seems to provide no direct technical support. Also while Obihai seems able to function as an ATA, it appears Google isn't actively supporting it's service through ATA's.
There is no 911 or E911 service. I'd be concerned if my email was hacked that my phone number could be lost with it. Without customer service, it's tough to consider Google Voice as a full replacement VOIP service. Instead I use it as a supplementary free VOIP service.
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Re: Outgoing calls?