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akasha1
join:2009-09-30
Jacksonville, FL

2 edits

akasha1

Member

Forward to Google Voice's voice mail w/o per min cost?

I like some of the voice mail features of Google Voice. In particular, I like:
* notifications (with emailed transcripts & audio)
* personalized greetings per caller or per group
* all voice mail messages in one place (including calls to mobile phone number)

I don't know of another voice mail service with these features (especially for free). Is there one?

But I am not happy with the rest of Google Voice, particularly the call quality and connection reliability (see my other posts on the topic). So I'm switching to something else (probably involving Voxalot or PBXes and CallCentric and/or Sipgate... maybe SipSorcery too).

Afer I make that switch, can I continue to use just GV's voice mail? If so, can I avoid a forwarding cost (per minute) when incoming calls get transferred to voice mail? (My sip provider gives me free incoming minutes but I will get billed if the call is forwarded to a DID.)

EDIT: looks like I would need either:
1. SIP address for my Google Voice account, or
2. free or low cost SIP to PSTN forwarding for just my GV number.

Thanks for any voice mail ideas.

EDIT: a very similar question came up here:
»SIP to PSTN forwarding service?
As far as I can tell, none of the solutions offered there would work for what I'm outlining above.
phonegnome looks interesting, but I'd have to install it at Google Voice

EDIT 2: I also found out about YouMail, but it is fairly expensive.

Random Thoughts: Too bad I can't just stay with Google Voice. Many months ago, after testing GV on a limited basis, I gave out the Google Voice number to everyone, including my clients. I had my client calls forwarding to my good quality landline. But after many, many bad experiences with my clients (poor sound quality, noise during calls, random droped calls, phone not ringing on incoming calls, and more), it will be a long time before I would even think about trusting Google Voice for my important phone calls. I'm back to my clients calling directly on my landline number. But I miss the voice mail of GV -- it fit my budget

tom thomas
@comcast.net

tom thomas

Anon

in your particular case were call quality is of prime importance i would recommend staying away from all the other services you mention and just use your land line directly. you can use GV voice mail with your land line by subscribing to call forwarding from your land line provider and forwarding all calls on no answer and busy to your GV number. as long as you GV number is local to you there should be no per minute charge for the call forwarding.

RockyBB
Premium Member
join:2005-01-31
Steamboat Springs, CO

RockyBB

Premium Member

said by tom thomas :

in your particular case were call quality is of prime importance i would recommend staying away from all the other services you mention and just use your land line directly. you can use GV voice mail with your land line by subscribing to call forwarding from your land line provider and forwarding all calls on no answer and busy to your GV number. as long as you GV number is local to you there should be no per minute charge for the call forwarding.
at last, the final answer.

ArgMeMatey
join:2001-08-09
Milwaukee, WI

ArgMeMatey to tom thomas

Member

to tom thomas
said by tom thomas :

...you can use GV voice mail with your land line by subscribing to call forwarding from your land line provider and forwarding all calls on no answer and busy to your GV number.
Is GV set up so it can see a "forward" from the PSTN via SS7 and answer immediately?

Otherwise for example your caller waits the 4 rings set by your landline provider's call forward-no answer, and then 4 rings for whatever GV thinks is enough time. 8 total rings.

Also you may not pay a per-minute rate but here with standard bargain-basement AT&T measured service, you would pay for each call forwarded to voicemail, whether AT&T's or anyone else's. Standard residential rate is $0.04 per call.

akasha1
join:2009-09-30
Jacksonville, FL

1 edit

akasha1 to tom thomas

Member

to tom thomas
said by tom thomas :

in your particular case were call quality is of prime importance i would recommend staying away from all the other services you mention and just use your land line directly.
Quality is important, but I think my requirements are about average. (I don't know if my Google Voice quality issues are unusual, but I suspect if GV was this bad for everyone, we'd hear more about it. So it isn't that my requirements are high, it's that GV's performance is very poor for me.)

Anyway, I do not have any services such as call forwarding on my landline. I suspect adding that will cost as much or more than the options I mentioned. However, I will call and inquire.

I have often made VoIP calls and Skype calls. Comparing every type of call I make (cellular, mobile Wifi VoIP, mobile 3g VoIP, VoIP via Linksys SPA2102, Skype, Vonage, landline, etc.), I can easily say that Google Voice paired with my landline is the worst by far. Typical VoIP quality is better. Even Gizmo + GV is better than landline + GV. Weird, but consistently true.

(I did a call today on an Android phone using Sipdroid, PBXes, and CallCentric and it was better than Google Voice + landline. Of course, landline alone is the best quality, but it lacks features.)

So I'm still looking for solution more flexible than using a number tied to a landline, but more reliable and higher quality than Google Voice. And I hope to incorporate Google's voice mail into that solution. Will forwarding work as expected (or will callers wait double the rings, etc.)?

tom thomas
@lbtmail.com

tom thomas to akasha1

Anon

to akasha1
said by akasha1:

I like some of the voice mail features of Google Voice. In particular, I like:
* notifications (with emailed transcripts & audio)
* personalized greetings per caller or per group
* all voice mail messages in one place (including calls to mobile phone number)

I don't know of another voice mail service with these features (especially for free). Is there one?

But I am not happy with the rest of Google Voice, particularly the call quality and connection reliability (see my other posts on the topic). So I'm switching to something else (probably involving Voxalot or PBXes and CallCentric and/or Sipgate... maybe SipSorcery too).

Afer I make that switch, can I continue to use just GV's voice mail? If so, can I avoid a forwarding cost (per minute) when incoming calls get transferred to voice mail? (My sip provider gives me free incoming minutes but I will get billed if the call is forwarded to a DID.)

EDIT: looks like I would need either:
1. SIP address for my Google Voice account, or
2. free or low cost SIP to PSTN forwarding for just my GV number.

Thanks for any voice mail ideas.

EDIT: a very similar question came up here:
»SIP to PSTN forwarding service?
As far as I can tell, none of the solutions offered there would work for what I'm outlining above.
phonegnome looks interesting, but I'd have to install it at Google Voice

EDIT 2: I also found out about YouMail, but it is fairly expensive.

Random Thoughts: Too bad I can't just stay with Google Voice. Many months ago, after testing GV on a limited basis, I gave out the Google Voice number to everyone, including my clients. I had my client calls forwarding to my good quality landline. But after many, many bad experiences with my clients (poor sound quality, noise during calls, random droped calls, phone not ringing on incoming calls, and more), it will be a long time before I would even think about trusting Google Voice for my important phone calls. I'm back to my clients calling directly on my landline number. But I miss the voice mail of GV -- it fit my budget
the thing is that every service you mention is really focused on the hacker/phone geek sort of person. none of them are anyplace near the high end of VOIP where reliability and/or quality is concerned. true you may be able to hack something together that is cheaper than land line call forwarding. but if you plan to keep your land line i doubt you will find a high quality option that is cheaper than either paying a couple bucks or month or a small per call fee for call forwarding.

personally i use all the services you mention. but i am a phone geek in it for a hobby as much as anything else. when quality and reliability are my main concern(such as for my business) i am strictly land line and cell phone.

akasha1
join:2009-09-30
Jacksonville, FL

akasha1

Member

said by tom thomas :

the thing is that every service you mention is really focused on the hacker/phone geek sort of person. none of them are anyplace near the high end of VOIP where reliability and/or quality is concerned. true you may be able to hack something together that is cheaper than land line call forwarding. but if you plan to keep your land line i doubt you will find a high quality option that is cheaper than either paying a couple bucks or month or a small per call fee for call forwarding.

personally i use all the services you mention. but i am a phone geek in it for a hobby as much as anything else. when quality and reliability are my main concern(such as for my business) i am strictly land line and cell phone.
Thanks, that's good advice in general. It will cost me about $4/mo (I think) to have my landline forward on busy/no answer. That's not as bad as I expected.

I wonder if all the Google Voice voicemail features (such as personalized greetings) will still work?

BTW, I thought CallCentric was at the high end of VoIP...
I also heard many people talking up PBXes for their businesses...

tom thomas
@comcast.net

tom thomas

Anon

said by akasha1:

said by tom thomas :

the thing is that every service you mention is really focused on the hacker/phone geek sort of person. none of them are anyplace near the high end of VOIP where reliability and/or quality is concerned. true you may be able to hack something together that is cheaper than land line call forwarding. but if you plan to keep your land line i doubt you will find a high quality option that is cheaper than either paying a couple bucks or month or a small per call fee for call forwarding.

personally i use all the services you mention. but i am a phone geek in it for a hobby as much as anything else. when quality and reliability are my main concern(such as for my business) i am strictly land line and cell phone.
Thanks, that's good advice in general. It will cost me about $4/mo (I think) to have my landline forward on busy/no answer. That's not as bad as I expected.

I wonder if all the Google Voice voicemail features (such as personalized greetings) will still work?

BTW, I thought CallCentric was at the high end of VoIP...
I also heard many people talking up PBXes for their businesses...
on callcentric you may be correct. i was really commenting about using services like voxalot, sipsorcery and PBXes. at least my personal PBXes account seems to have outages at least once a week. that would not likely be acceptable for a bussiness.