VOIP Tech Chat → Biil Simon relaunches his Google Voice gateway; deal expires 4/10

This showed up in my RSS feed this morning:

Google Voice Gateway returns
Posted on April 7, 2015

A new Google Voice Gateway is available, now with new and improved features and a secure, token-based (OAUTH2) login system. See /services for a list of the features. This “reboot” is the result of months of research and work and comes with a small connection fee. Users of our previous Google Voice Gateway project know the level of quality to expect. I will be filling out the documentation more in the next few days; keep an eye on the Forums/Support tab where you’ll find a new Knowledge Base and a refreshed forum.

If you go to the link in the previous text then you see this:

Now Available: An all-new Google Voice/SIP Gateway. (Still the original and best. )

• Convert your Google Voice number to a standard SIP connection.


• Place and receive Google Voice calls with your VoIP ATA or IP phone, Asterisk, FreeSWITCH, or any SIP PBX.


• Receive Caller ID name (CNAM) on incoming Google Voice calls.


• Route your Google Voice number to any SIP URI.


• Register multiple extensions, all tied to your Google Voice number. Call and transfer calls between them like a miniature phone system.


• Connect over UDP or TCP (preferred for mobile connections to preserve battery life). Choose TLS with SRTP for an encrypted connection between your phone and the gateway.


• Select the GSM codec for better quality over low-bandwidth 3G data connections, or G.711u/PCM for standard connections.


• One-time setup fee: $5.99 Promotional price of $3.99 through April 10, 2015

Personally I have always appreciated Bill's work with his previous gateway, and even if you have an Obihai device you might want to get in on this because of the ability to receive Caller ID name. Bill was the first to provide a Google Voice gateway and while this isn't totally free like the last one was, $3.99 is still a pretty cheap price for this service, especially since it's a one-time setup fee.

If you sign into the new service using a Google Account, you see this additional information:

Your one-time payment of $3.99 (promotional price through April 10, 2015) pays for the connection of a single Google Voice number to one or more SIP devices registered to your Gateway account. Get all these great features for the lifetime of this service for a single low setup fee. This payment is risk free: You may cancel your service and request a refund within 30 days for any reason.

So now you have a choice between Bill's service and GVSip. There are definitely differences in the two offerings (one is that Bill gives you Caller ID name for free, while GVSip charges an extra monthly fee for that service), but this post is already a bit too long so I will stop here.

I now have both. Too bad I can't vote like that in elections. Wait; I live in Chicago; maybe...

If you die, you can vote a third time

Thanks for the heads up. I signed up, got my OBi200 configured for it, status is Registered. I can call out on it, but incoming calls to my GV number don't ring on the OBi. What am I missing?

I am experiencing the same thing on my OBi200. It rang one time on an incoming call but nothing since then. I can call out fine. I can also forward to SIP URI just fine. Just doesn't seem to ring on incoming calls to my registered OBi200.

I have a ticket in with them. I suggest you open one as well. I am configured exactly as they suggested in the reply to my ticket, and said so in my reply. I haven't heard back yet.

Please report back if and when you receive a response. That said, I've known people who get their Google Voice connection via an Obihai device, or through an Asterisk server, to have this same issue from time to time. I don't know if it's because Google Voice has an issue with incoming calls from certain providers or what, but it seems some users have never had that problem while others do experience it from time to time. But, if the calls go through when forwarded to a SIP URI, that sounds like maybe Bill needs to do a couple more tweaks on the system. I do seem to recall that he has a day job at some university in Pennsylvania, so he may not be able to work on it during the daytime hours. EDIT: I see he fixed it shortly after the problem was reported. Good job, Bill!

I have received a reply to my ticket. Bill is working on it.

Here is a one dollar off coupon to try out GVsip.com for $3.99 until 4/10.

Use coupon "GVSIP1" when purchasing.

GVsip has an add-on for Caller ID with name lookups, which we have monthly expenses on in a per dip basis on the backend and thats why its an add-on with a fee.

I don't think Bill can sustain caller ID lookups with a one time setup fee unless the caller ID information is heavily cached or its caller ID info is generated like "Wireless Caller" and not a true lookup. Bill, can you share some details on the free Caller ID?

It's fixed (for me).

Fixed for me also.

Would you share the secrets of how you provide your service? You can start by telling us what platform your service runs on, and if it doesn't natively support oAuth, by revealing the code you use to support oAuth lookups.

My guess is that Bill just might release some of that information after he refines the process a bit, but you never will.

Just saying that for someone who disses competitors and never gives back anything (at least not that you've ever mentioned in this forum), you sure are quick to ask for information when you think it might help you provide your service.

Even if you are correct, and the Caller ID lookups that Bill provides are heavily cached or come from the same sources that we use (for free) when running Caller ID Superfecta on a FreePBX system, that's still better than what Google Voice provides in the way of Caller ID lookups, which is rather strange given that they probably have a huge database of names and phone numbers. What's really strange is that they don't give you a way to use Google Contacts to store names and numbers of people that call you frequently, and then associate those names with incoming calls from those numbers. It would not be at all difficult for them to do, and there are plenty of pages around that show you how to do it on an Asterisk server by running a script using a nightly cron job, but for some reason they just don't.

Google, where it would never occur to them to combine two of their existing services in a way that would provide added value to users of both services!

Its no secret, I use opencnam.com for GVsip

»www.opencnam.com/

it costs $0.004 per lookup

If you have an OBI, what does this service provide that you cannot do with with OBI alone? If I switch my GV number to this service, do I lose any features that are provided with an OBI100?

Works Great! Fast response from support!

GV does not provide incoming CID to an OBi. This service does.

FYI: IPKall provides CNAM for free. If you forward incoming calls from GV DID to IPKall DID, you'll get correct CID and CNAM all the times. No need to pay for that to GVG (Google Voice Gateway) or GVsip...

+1

Just switched over from legacy service to new service. Working as advertised!

When I signed up, initially I logged in with the wrong Google account by accident. If you have a separate Gmail account created just for use with Google Voice, don't forget (like I did) that you need to log on as that other Gmail account when you sign up for the new gateway service!

I gave up on IPKall. CID on GV calls never worked for me via IPKall. I don't remember the number it showed, but huge numbers of others saw the same number.

And I could never get IPKall to connect properly directly to my OBi via SIP URL. I had to use my CC IP Freedom URL, but the CID still didn't work.

The only reliable CID for GV was when calls were forwarded to a CC DID, but I do get some unwanted calls that are dialed directly to that CC DID

Since when? They sure never used to.

I am not sure I understand what you said. However, if you use either GVSip and/or BS Google Voice Gateway, won't they already act as the man-in-the-middle? If so, they definitely will introduce some additional point of failures. I believe this also applies to any OBiHai device that uses OBiHai server with 0AUTH.

1. The fake CID IPKall problem (2066820185) was fixed past October.
2. >> But I'd rather not have another shim between me and the caller.
Do you aware, that GVG offers similar shim too...

I gave up on IPKall long before it was fixed, so getting it fixed made no difference to me.

Since ... always, may be. I see it all the time in my logs.

I just checked, and I'm still getting what I've always gotten from IPKall: rate center and state. It's nice, but it's not CNAM.

To get working CID on incoming GV calls I was set up like this: GV forwards to CC DID, OBi provisioned for CC. But that opens me up to some annoying directly dialed calls to that CC DID. (somebody, somewhere was mailing out fake bank checks with my CC DID on them).

Using BS GVG gets me incoming CID without forwarding calls to other numbers.

OK, here is just one of the examples: "MD" 4104527579. Check it...

I too would like to know where Bill's GV gateway CNAM is coming from. AFAIK good CNAM always costs someone per lookup. Right now I forward a free IPComms DID to a Voip.ms virtual number just to get good CNAM.

May I be so bold as to ask where you are forwarding your IPKall DID to and what logs you are reading?

I would find it much more convincing if you could point to anywhere on the web that backs up your assertion. I can't find anything. If IPKall was providing a free DID and free CNAM I would think that it would show up in some blog or forum somewhere. Or for that matter, you'd think IPKall might mention it on their own web site? Wouldn't you?

I'm receiving incoming SIP calls via FreeSWITCH.