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Will Google Hang Up on Voice?
- cpursley 13y agoOn this topic, what's a good Google voice alternative? Something for business that will ring my cell phone. Preferably a 1-800 # with answering ability and phone tree capability.
- CurrentB 13y agoI've enjoyed using Twilio (http://www.twilio.com http://www.twilio.com)
- cpursley 13y agoHum, is Twilio more for integrating voice servies with an app? I'm looking for something stand-alone.
- runT1ME 13y agoRingCentral is a good paid alternative.
- jaytaylor 13y agoFull disclosure: I work at SendHub SendHub (https://sendhub.com https://sendhub.com) will give you a virtual business line (SMS+Voice) for free that you can access from the web or from your iPhone/iPad/Android device. I know we support 1-800 numbers on paid plans, just hop on support chat and they will take care of you.
- gergles 13y agoYou guys should make a "Google Voice replacement" plan that is just one line and no grouping but more generous with texts & minutes. I'd pay for it but you guys don't have a plan that is anywhere near this model.
- fn 13y agoDoes it work with Canadian area codes?
- jaytaylor 13y agoTry it out - some parts of Canada are supported.
- mikebracco 13y agoSendHub team - I'd try to get the developer behind GrowlVoice (http://www.growlvoice.com http://www.growlvoice.com) to support your service or come up with simular Menu Bar interface. It's been one of the most popular paid apps in the Mac App Store for a long time. They provide best way to quickly interface with GV from your Menu Bar on your Mac.
- cpursley 13y agoThanks - that's the sort of thing I'm looking for.
- kylesethgray 13y agoI really hope they don't. I use it daily and it's probably the service I rely on the most, besides GMail.
- yanw 13y agoTrollish post. Empty speculation and blatant pageview whoring. No new features in the latest update but the .apk teardown suggests future functionality: http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/04/15/apk-teardown-google-voice-0-4-2-80-something-wants-to-read-google-voices-settings/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/04/15/apk-teardown-google-...
- ConstantineXVI 13y agoA note: if you're on VZW, their (sadly hideous) Messenger app replicates Voice's cross-device SMS(/MMS!) on your VZ number.
- Andrex 13y agoWhy Google Voice still does not support MMS is dumbfounding to me.
- mgkimsal 13y agoWhy something with 'voice' in the name supports any sort of text messaging at all is dumbfounding to me.
- aleyan 13y agoWhy something called 'phone' has a map, a tv, a calendar, an internet browser, and a bunch of games built in at all is dumbfounding to me. Yet that is the world we live in. Phones are expected to have all these features and phone numbers are expected to be able to accept text messages. Just two weeks ago I wasted an hour waiting for my friends because GV silently dropped MMS multi-person chat messages sent to me. Not ok.
- chrisrhoden 13y agoShort answer: no. Why Wired would publish an article with this title is pretty obvious, but for those of you who don't read through, there's absolutely nothing to see here. Resources continue to be invested in the project. Everything Google has said on the matter indicates that they know that they would piss off too many people if the functionality was reduced or went away - and that the grievance would be real, from their perspective. It's far more likely at this point, based on everything we've seen (and that this article links to) that it will be integrated more heavily with + and hangouts and talk. Your phone number isn't going away.
- sylvainww 13y agoWish I had started by reading your comment, and save me some time. It would be a real bummer to see the phone number I'm now putting on business cards disappear...And I'd like Google Voice to let me place calls from my phone, too (when not in the US, you can only call from the computer). And transfer any call to Google Voice directly to my cellphone..I don't want new features, I want better quality and the same features than US users.
- meritt 13y agoNo. Google Voice is a paid service (additional numbers, porting numbers, etc). They won't shut it down. They might deprecate the free-to-use features and make it paid only, perhaps. But it will not go away.
- rgbrenner 13y agoHow much money do they make off of voice? I was a (paying) postini customer and they shut that down... So paying them is no guarantee
- yanw 13y agoIt's not shutting down, not really: http://postini-transition.googleapps.com/ http://postini-transition.googleapps.com/
- EvanAnderson 13y agoPostini as we've know it is shutting down. Google is forcing their Customers to move to Google Apps. I have several Customers who have been using Postini for multiple years each and I'm expecting a rough patch when we start being forced to "transition". As of the last "webinar" I attended w/ Google people there still isn't feature parity for the end user-facing portion of the service for those of us who still have on-premise email servers.
- rgbrenner 13y agoYes, I read that page before they shut down my account. They sent it to me repeatedly, saying I needed to move everything to Google Apps. Completely ignores the fact that some features in Postini are not available in Apps; that Apps is several times more expensive; and that Apps includes a range of apps that are completely unneeded (if I wanted Apps, I would have signed up for it instead of Postini to begin with). Edit: I should rephrase: they did not "shut down" my account. They just informed me I would no longer be eligible to renew my account when my subscription expired.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
- ben1040 13y agoThey at least care enough about it to integrate it with Glass. https://support.google.com/glass/answer/3086044?hl=en https://support.google.com/glass/answer/3086044?hl=en If you're using Google Voice, the SMS will be sent from your Google Voice number. Otherwise, outbound SMS messages will be sent from the native SMS app on your phone.
- guylhem 13y agoIs there any similar service where an existing GV number could be ported? I was with sipphone client before it turned into gizmo5 and was swallowed. I remember the pains of reconfiguration (hardware ata + sip enabled dect phone + handheld + desktop + laptop ...), and pushing the new phone number to contacts, including the fact that to this day my sip-enabled dect phone at home still can't make outgoing call using GV. I don't want the same scenario to repeat itself - I'll pay for the privilege of not having to wonder whether the service might close or not.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- agwa 13y agoIf you're just looking for a decent SIP service which lets you place/receive calls on the PSTN, take a look at these companies: http://www.callcentric.com/ http://www.callcentric.com/ https://www.anveo.com/ https://www.anveo.com/ https://www.voip.ms/ https://www.voip.ms/ All three are well-established companies, though Callcentric is probably the best. I've personally ported a GV number to them. The service isn't free and you don't get voicemail transcription or a fancy web interface, but it's reliable and very good at making/receiving phone calls.
- flootch 13y agoThe difference between voice and reader is that while I might pay up to $5 per month for reader, I would be tempted by free alternatives. Voice is world class and there are no competitors that come close for less than $10 per month. (please don't tell Google this.)
- jeff303 13y agoI agree for the most part, but lately I have started noticing more glitches with it. In particular, new "generated" numbers are being created for existing contacts in response to SMS, and calls are being dropped from the server when attempting to answer on my cell (seems to work fine if I just disable call screening entirely, which is what I may end up doing).
- cdoxsey 13y agoFor anyone looking for an alternative to Google Voice checkout SendHub (https://www.sendhub.com/ https://www.sendhub.com/).
- killwhitey 13y agoI've been using Google Voice for SMS for years now, and the threading issue is still a constant bother. For those who've never used it, Voice splits messages into different threads, but is completely opaque about how it does this, resulting in conversations with a person split up seemingly randomly. I got a long text a few days ago from someone that had to be split into three. The first and third part was attached to the previous conversation, and the second part started a new one. No idea why it does this, but the fact that I've been searching online for an answer since 2010 and still don't have one is worrisome.