Google Voice is a great way to manage phone hell by giving you a single phone number that automatically rings your mobile, home, work and other phones based on your choice of rules and settings (who’s calling, when, etc.). But people are still stuck with their legacy phone numbers, and moving completely away from them is difficult.
I solved the problem by simply porting my mobile number away from AT&T over to Google Voice, a feature that Google says will be launched more broadly eventually.
Others solve the problem via the Google Voice application on various phones. But even then, if someone calls your old mobile number and leaves a message, you have to deal with it separately.
Not any more. Tonight Google is launching a third option, a new feature that allows mobile users to move their voicemail away from their carrier and over to Google Voice. The benefits: your mobile voicemails go into your Google Voice inbox along with other voicemails and text messages, plus you can create custom greetings for callers and your voicemails are all automatically transcribed (sometimes hilariously).
There are a few steps that have to be completed that vary based on the carrier and phone that you use. But if you are really trying to move over to Google Voice, it’s worth it. When it’s all set up, voicemail messages from people who call your mobile number (not your Google Voice number) will be taken over by Google Voice. That makes them much easier to listen to, or read.
And yes, it even works on the iPhone.
Yeah, but I have an iPhone
Got this message trying to activate this feature on an unlocked iPhone running T-Mobile: “Error performing request. No Network service.”
Help a Googlaholic out with an invite!
nothing like a google fanboy
aaron’s got the first.
Thank you sir.
I still haven’t gotten my 3 invites to hand out. How long is this roll out going to take?
I’ll send you a Google Voice invite!
Arrington already sent you one. So never mind.
I Want
done (second).
Guys you RULES! I’ve just received it
Thanks a LOT!
Would appreciate an invite
win! (third and last)
Got an invite after your ‘conversion’ to Google Voice and Android. I love it! Thanks for the tip!
It bothers me that Google voice does not reaches my cellphone (ATT) at times. I have not figured out why? It is not my settings for sure. So, I am not sure whether google voice is matured enough for the move on professional/business basis.
i’ll take an invite
Sign me up for Google Voice!
benhughes8@gmail.com
invite please
kthx
Scratch that! Already have it and forgot I did.
Thanks though!
Now all I need is an iPhone app and I’m all set. *sigh*
invite please! Dominicson at gmail
Done!
I have posted with my other e-mail, now I’m posting with my Gmail. If I won, you can send to this one
Wow this is a cool feature for mobile users. Now I can create custom greetings for my callers. I really love Google Voice, but the number thing is a real issue; as long as people can call you on your other number, your use of Google Voice is hit & miss.
I had the same dilemma too. After telling everyone to call me on my GV # I stopped answering calls on my old #. I also disabled voicemail on my old #.
I wish google would start sending them out.
Porting phone number away from AT&T to google voice seems to a good idea.
Can I have an invite please?
Why do you tards think you need an invite?
Becaaaaaaause you do?
Sprint users beware!
This is the disclaimer I got when I tried to activate my voicemail forwarding in Google Voice:
Note: Sprint is currently rolling out the ability to enable free call forwarding. Until that is completed, this feature may not work or you may be charged every time someone leaves a voicemail.
I saw the same warning when I went into the settings to activate my old cell number with Google Voice. It was enough to get me to stop…
Any word on which of the two options is true? “May not work” is not much fun, but it’s a lot better than “may be charged every time…”
thanks for the heads up dude
“Sprint announced today [27-Oct-09] that it will not charge customers for certain types of call forwarding. Conditional call forwarding for busy calls or calls not answered using the customer’s wireless phone will be free, beginning mid-November. (Standard charges will continue to apply for immediate call forwarding.)”
http://www.busi...amp;newsLang=en
I would DIE for an invite.
What’s your email?
So now, if somebody calls my cell number, they have to wait 10 rings before it goes to voicemail? How is this better?
No, what you’re doing is setting “conditional call forwarding” on your cell phone, so that calls that are unanswered or busy get bounced to Google Voice instead of your cell phone’s voicemail box.
On Google Voice’s end, it’s set to recognize that calls that are “bounced” to it from your cell phone should get dumped directly into the GV voicemail.
It’s not adding any extra rings– it’s just changing the mailbox that receives the voicemail from your own cell phone’s to Google Voice.
I tried it this morning and GV does NOT recognize that the call is bounced. It still rang 5 more times before going to voicemail on the GV side.
I don’t know what to tell ya, Eric. I followed the instructions, but when somebody calls my cell, it rings 5 times, then gets transferred to Google Voice, where it rings my cell 5 more times, then goes to voicemail.
How do I fix?
Change your forwarding options to ‘Go Straight To Voicemail’.
I tried it out as well. My experience:
I have a Google Voice account set up to ring my work and cellphone numbers. I’m just holding the account until I can port my number so I never use it. When I first activated Google Voicemail, unanswered callers were directed to my work voicemail. I called myself and sure enough unanswered calls went to my work voicemail. (I don’t know how that happened). So I enabled “Do Not Disturb,” which directed calls to Google Voicemail, but it added about 5 rings to the call before voicemail answered.
I set it up hurriedly this morning, so maybe I did something wrong.
I had the same problem: if someone called my cellphone and I hit ignore, it would then ring on my work phone.
The solution above worked. Specifically, go to “settings” -> “phones” -> “edit” -> “Show advanced settings” -> and clicking “Go straight to voicemail”
That fixed that problem. When I hit ignore on my cell now goes instantly to my google voicemail. (my cell provider is Verizon).
As the other posters said, all you need to do is enable the ‘Go straight to voicemail’ option. We’ve tested this on and off and it fixes the extra rings problem (although it would be nice if it was enabled by default – especially when you choose to replace your voicemail with Google Voice.
Before I changed my settings my callers were getting 8+ rings which is a pretty long time to wait.
I wrote a quick guide to removing the extra rings: http://www.tech...e-as-voicemail/
This doesn’t seem to work. You set it to ‘go straight to voicemail’ and hit save, and it *still* re-rings the phone and all the other forwarded phones. If you deactivate forwarding on the other phones, it will still re-ring the cell phone. This is especially fun if you hit ignore on your phone, as it will then ring your phone again before going to GV voicemail. Maybe it is a temporary glitch…
Would appreciate an invite. Thanks!
I’m very curious to see if the (M)LNP extends to all carriers or a subset of carriers or other restrictions emerge. Granted, it’s all just tamping down the rush that will occur in contracts that are lopsided on value perception.
As I already have a Google Voice account I’d much rather have the inside contact for your special porting test
Ok, this sounds great, but how do I institute this change? The article doesn’t mention that ANYWHERE!
I don’t get it.
Someone calls and leaves a message. How do I listen to it away from my computer? (Yes it can be transcribed into email but what if I want to listen.)
Sounds like there’s a missing piece like a Google Voice mobile site or a Google Voice app.
Both of the things you mentioned exist. There is an app for the Android and BlackBerry platforms, and there is a mobile site for everything else.
You can also dial into your own Google Voice number to access your voicemail, similar to what cell providers have been providing for years.
Mike, a link might have helped. Here is one:
http://googlevo...ing-number.html
I could use an invite to google voice if someone has an extra: jamiljuma@gmail
thanks in advance!
Using Google Voice as your voicemail provider is not new — I’ve been doing it for the past 2 years, since the service was known as Grandcentral. It just takes advantage of the conditional forward GSM code (http://www.arcx...GsmFeatures.htm) to forward calls you don’t pick up to GV.
However, this did lead to the sometimes annoying habit of my phone ringing twice for every person that called my “real” number (once before it forwarded, and then again because GV is configured to ring my cell). Hopefully, now that they officially support this feature, this will be fixed.
More importantly, I think allowing people to sign up for the service using their own number is brilliant for a few reasons:
(1) It allows for signups with no friction — you don’t have to give out a new number to get the voicemail benefits.
(2) As people use the custom features more and more, they’ll inevitably port their number over to be able to take advantage of all of the benefits of the service.
(3) Most importantly, however, is the one the article surprisingly overlooked: IT SAVES GOOGLE LOTS OF MONEY. Acquiring and giving out new numbers and constantly forwarding them can’t possibly be cheap. This is a much better way of allowing people to “demo” the service without hogging precious and scarce resources.
You’re exactly right… Conditional forwarding was always available, nothing new here except for the fact that new users can port over their numbers. When can us existing users do this!!?!
Carriers knew this was going to happen and are probably scared out of their minds right now. Google has a patent for an audio ad to be played as someone’s call gets connected. So not only is Google saving money by not buying up numbers from Level3, but they’re also going to make a killing by creating a marketplace for “ringback ads.”
Unfortunately, this conditional call forwarding “feature” they’re marketing as “use your existing number” is no different than any of the handful of competing services out there (youmail, trapcall, etc). Can someone tell us how to actually port a number over?
I don’t think they’re offering porting just yet — otherwise, I’m sure they would’ve talked about how it will terminate your current cell contract, Google now owns your number, etc.
Looks like today’s offering is just “Google Voicemail” for your existing line. Patience…
You should probably mention iPhone users will lose their visual voicemail capability by doing this. If I were Google, I would have waited for the Google Voice on iPhone app approval to get sorted out first. This definitely falls more in line with Apples attitude on Google Voice taking over standard iPhone features. Don’t mistake what I am saying for misunderstanding the product, I know this isn’t a requirement of the app, but the fact that it’s possible and is a feature of the service does not help Googles case.
Arrington knew all along that these features were in the pipeline and more aggressive ones are down the line. You’d have to be an absolute imbecile to not think that GV competes with all mobile phone OSes and carriers. And you’d have to be very smart to massage your message over many months of post from “non-competing” and “not VOIP” to where we are at now.
I too was wondering about Visual Voicemail on the iPhone. Loss of native Visual Voicemail is unfortunate.
Thanks Josh – I was wonder if that would happen. I will wait…
So new users have the option to use their existing phone number by porting it, but existing users still cannot port?
I don’t understand the value of this offering. I’ve been waiting patiently for GV to finally allow number porting because, we’ll, I’m not Arrington.
Arrington! Do you have any insider dope on when portability is coming or have you been sworn to secrecy?
You could do this for a while now. Works great. http://www.goog...d6e5d&hl=en
Done and done…but on my blackberry I cant reassign the 1 or W key for my Gvoice number to retrieve voicemails.
It wont let me delete the entry like other assignable letters. Theres got to be a hack or something I can do to change the default voicemail number…crackberry forums here I come.
Assign the #2 key then. It works.
You may be disappointed in the way Google handles dialing in for VM. Once you’ve listened to a message it becomes a “read” message, and then it is inaccessible by dialing in. This is a pain for saved messages.
Please Michael, what is the Android phone you saw that made you write in one of the comments “will blow people’s socks off”? (or something along this line..)
Can’t be the Droid, so what is it ???
The suspense is killing me!
Hey Michael,
Thanks for the post. GV still has the same problem it did before. It takes like 10 RINGS to go to VM. Basically, Google Voice is adding 4 rings after I hit the ignore button on my phone on an incoming call…so, if I don’t pick up, it’s close to 10 rings.
Any help would be great.
m
You can enable an option called ‘Send straight to voicemail’ in the advanced phone settings which removes the extra ring. Here’s the guide I wrote about it: http://www.tech...e-as-voicemail/
Conditional forwarding was always available, nothing new here except for the fact that new users can port over their numbers. When can us existing users do this!!?!
Carriers knew this was going to happen and are probably scared out of their minds right now. Google has a patent for an audio ad to be played as someone’s call gets connected. So not only is Google saving money by not buying up numbers from Level3, but they’re also going to make a killing by creating a marketplace for “ringback ads.”
Unfortunately, this conditional call forwarding “feature” they’re marketing as “use your existing number” is no different than any of the handful of competing services out there (youmail, trapcall, etc). Can someone tell us how to actually port a number over?
This is not enabled on all GV accounts (at least it’s not enabled on mine yet!)
Plzzzz send me an invite.
James.ashburn@gmail.com
I love this !!! thank you techcrunch, I am willing to pay to read this content !!!
I can’t seem to find the settings to make this happen. Are they slowly rolling it out?
Be sure your mobile number is identified as such in the settings. I’d left it defined as “Home” by default so it wasn’t giving me the “add voicemail to this number” option.
Hi. Could someone help me with an invite to aegajardo at gmail.com.
Thx a lot
Great feature! Google Voice continues to amaze me. Now let’s just hope they don’t suffer from much downtime, could be a deal breaker.
Hi .. please could someone help me sending an invite to aegajardo at gmail…
Thx
Alvaro
Just go to voice.google.com and fill out a request. It takes a week, preserve kneepads for more serious needs.
Great Future. I am getting addict to Google
Only one of my friends were interested in GVoice, so I still have two invites to send out.
(I would just look above and pick at random, but I wouldn’t want to double invite some one, supposing some one else also picked people at random.)
corey dot glynn at gmail dot com if you would!
How does Google Voice work when the service is down like it happened a few weeks ago?
This is not new – all you had to do before was change the number your calls were forwarded to if you didn’t pick up to your gv number.
Number porting will be out by January
and last but not least, visual vm on the iPhone sucks anyway!
Sounds like what Youmail’s been doing for a while. I wonder what’s going to happen to Youmail now that the big G has started to close in their territory?
Youmail.com had all this for ages. Their collection of custom greeting is also v cool.
C
Sent from my iPhone.
Concept sounds good and useful. As the service is free from Google , Opt in Users will be quite high and this would rather be a threat to the telecom operators as they may loose their identity and brand image. The service would rather identified as Google Voice service suppressing the service providers identity in near future positioning all the operators on same platform
Indeed a nice feature .. but I beleive this was already out .. frm other source like youmail.com … but its always good to have it from Google ..
Cheers,
Daina
In the youtube clip, it seems like you can get your voicemail on your phone AND in Google Voice.
Is that not possible?
I tried it with my iphone and only got the vm on Google Voice.
You can call your Google Voice number and get your messages that way.
I had a Voice account, and added Google Voicemail to my existing cell phone, and now when I use my phone’s Voicemail speed dial it goes to my Google number automatically.