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 Review by David 
member for 10.9 years, 5488 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 7 days ago
 Granite City,Madison,IL
 Contract price not specified.  about 1 days "A good value with a regular land line, VoIP not so much." "doesn't do social network sites, not a true SMS type of number" "It works and does what I need"
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A good value to have if you have a land line based telephone, and a broadband connection to the google voice page. Just punch in the number (anywhere in the U.S.) and set your target number to your landline and hit "call".
It doesn't cost anything for phone calls because Google voice will call your landline phone first then ring the party you are trying to call.
So if you want the reliability of your land line telephone, and have the long distance capability of a VoIP this service is just right for you.
For people who already have a VoIP as the primary service, this will be a bit of a waste, as most VoIP can already call all over the U.S.
4/2/11=
still have google voice, and now their e-mail integrates as a softphone. I use it a lot of times with a bluetooth headset and my bluetooth enabled laptop.
8/10/12- update time again- I use a spare magicjack dongle with my google voice these days. it's easier than getting a voip box
05/15/13- still have google voice.
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Review by pandora
member for 11.9 years, 5136 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
updated 64 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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Review by cb14
member for 107 days, 110 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 103 days ago
- Miami Beach,Miami-Dade,FL
- Contract price not specified.
- "Good and highly consistent call quality, FREE service."
- "Call treatments unreliable, no customer service, voice transcription worthless, no support for 'early media'."
- "Great for a free service."
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I use Google Voice via my obi 100 and 202 ATA for both incoming and outgoing calls.
The call quality is surprisingly good, matches a number of VOIP providers. the consistency is excellent.Better than cell phone, suitable for serious use.
I had some problems with the reliability of call treatments( call forwarding etc) and I decided not to use them any more or only occasionally. The voice mail transcription is worthless.
Tech support nonexistent, only a user forum. International rates unimpressive.
DID choice used to be excellent, much less so currently but still good.
Can be used from (most)other countries as well as long as the account was set up in the US.
GV has currently a very major flaw, read here :
»Google Voice odd behavior
With all it's limitations, still fully recommended for a cost conscious person as a supplement to cell phones and other VOIP providers.
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 Review by JohnKirchner
member for 8 years, 1147 visits, last login: 31 days ago
lodged 262 days ago
- Great Falls,Cascade,MT
- Contract price not specified.
- "Excellent for forwarding and VM"
- "Need more local numbers"
- "Very nice service for free!"
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I use GV as an enhancement to my cell phone. Perfect if you do not want to give out your actual cell number or if you have friends and family in Canada since calls and text messages are free.
So many features and options that you would think cell providers would offer but do not...at least not for free anyways.
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 ajeff
join:2007-07-30
Orleans, VT | works great with an Obi 110... Some latency when calling cell phones but that is to be expected. Otherwise a nice second line (first is VOIP.ms). | |
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Review by hudiat
member for 1.6 years, 312 visits, last login: 154 days ago
lodged 1.1 years ago
- undisclosed location
- Contract price not specified.
- "Amazing solution for adding new numbers and forwarding"
- "SMS is iffy, but usually works perfect"
- "Great service"
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Overall great service. I used to get a number in a different area code to give out, it just forwards to my main number. I can even set it only to answer certain hours.
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 Review by jwxa
member for 1.3 years, 17 visits, last login: 28 days ago
lodged 1.3 years ago
- Nashville,Davidson,TN
 Business customer- Contract price not specified.
- about 1 days
- "Good Features, Good Quality, Portable"
- "Caller does not see your Google Voice CID"
- "No complaints"
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I use Google Voice as the voice mail for my mobile phone and like the features. Voice mail to text and transcribed in my email is very cool. I love my Google Voice telephone number and I am starting to give that out as my main number. Good for screening calls, and ringing more than one phone. I can call out from my Google Apps email account using my Google Voice #.
I also have an account for our family and have it associated with a Google apps account that I maintain for our family emails.
I wish I could have both Google voice #'s ring to my cell phone, but I haven't tried that yet. Overall, I'm impressed with all of the features and call quality.
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 Review by blohner
member for 10.9 years, 5570 visits, last login: 1 days ago
updated 1.5 years ago
- Cortlandt Manor,Westchester,NY
- Contract price not specified.
- about 1 days
- "Free; Able to port in number; excellent for domestic"
- "nothing so far"
- "Can't beat the price. It just works for me. Replaced a 25$ month Vonage line"
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Update Nov 2011:
After >6 month of Google Voice for my primary line I am a happy camper... I moved more lines over to Google Voice. The enhanced calling features, integration with Android (e.g. Voicemail Widget) etc... would make this a great service even if there was a monthly charge... At the current free rate you can't beat it...
I ported my Vonage line (with an intermediate step of t-mobile prepaid since Google only ports in mobile numbers) over in 4 days. Using an OB110 with Google Voice and am 100% happy. Is it a true landline replacement? Probably not. But I have a cellphone, ooma, sipgate and betamax as a backup and have yet to use either one... It's been a couple of month and so far as I can tell I have 100% uptime... Go google go...
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Review by ConstantineM
member for 1.7 years, 396 visits, last login: a few minutes ago
updated 1.5 years ago
- San Jose,Santa Clara,CA
- Contract price not specified.
- "great service; awesome number selection and search on any part of the number"
- "some uncertainty about the future of the service"
- "get a great custom number in a cool area code :-)"
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Google Voice has changed the way you think about phone service in the US.
Prior to Google Voice, and even now that it's been a while since it's started, you used to get numbers assigned by area code and rate centre. With Google Voice, you specify what number you want based on your personality, and immediately search their huge database for free numbers based on any combinations of area codes and strings. No stupid "select state, then rate centre with area code". 1-NPA-NXX-XXXX, for any NPA, NXX and XXXX? Yeap, if they could have it, you can get it! And they have a lot of it!
My brother got our 7-letter last name in the NXX-XXXX part in a non-local area code; I got an immediately-adjacent NPA to where I live and work (same county, who cares about rate centres?) with an official company abbreviation in NXX (alas by chance) and my user name in XXXX (thanks to GV).  Try asking AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint or T-Mobile USA for even the XXXX selection alone! (Fido Solutions does allow you to select the XXXX part, though, after selecting the rate centre.)
The only annoying thing about the service is that it is US-centric, and although calling Canada is free, you can neither get a Canadian number with Google Voice, nor can you add a Canadian number as one of your own numbers to a Google Voice account.
Another annoying thing is they don't offer any standard SIP access to their network, neither inbound nor outbound, at all. If you want to use Google Voice with your SIP phone, whether it's a softphone or a business grade hardware phone, you'd have to get a DID number from a SIP provider in addition to a SIP account. It's relatively easy to do so with IPKall (DID) and OnSIP (SIP), where you can still get the complete setup free of charge, however, that obviously adds multiple layers of additional points of failure, and, in my experience, IPKall does seem to malfunction quite often.
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Review by Tobester
member for 12.5 years, 3807 visits, last login: 1 days ago
updated 1.6 years ago
- San Francisco,San Francisco,CA
- Contract price not specified.
- about 1 days
- "FREE calls; can keep home number private, useful features."
- "VOIP call quality is not ready for primetime."
- "Better than paying for long distance calls, if needed."
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I have used Google Voice for over a year and my biggest complaint is the poor call quality at times, and a few dropped calls.
The built-in features such as ringing cell phone and home numbers is a big plus.
Since I now have free Nationwide Long distance with Sonic.net, I primarily use my Google Voice number when calling 800 numbers in order to keep my telephone numbers private.
Bottom line: I have found the call quality of Google Voice is not as good as my pay POTS calls, and definitely not business quality.
Edited: out VOIP for Google Voice
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Review by yahoo2003
member for 5.5 years, 1567 visits, last login: 142 days ago
updated 1.6 years ago
- Mclean,Fairfax,VA
- Contract price not specified.
- "Free"
- "If it won't last"
- "Best free service lasted longer than many paid services"
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Google provided free phone services for many with features such as forwarding, voice mail, Text Messaging.
Google Voice has inspired some most innovative inventions in VOIP, e.g., Google diallers, Obi devices, GV/Gtalk for PBXs. I have
I had Google Voice (former Grand Central) for many year (2007~2008?), it worked more reliable than some paid services. Other family members have enjoyed GV for many years without complain.
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Re: Outgoing calls?
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