While the idea sounds fantastic - the one major hesitation I have is how difficult will it be to get customer support from Google? I've been waiting for this feature for quite sometime, but now I'm seriously reconsidering. Despite the gripes anyone might have with their existing wireless carrier's customer service.. you can get someone on the other end of phone 100% of the time to help you resolve problems. Let's face it, your mobile number these days is probably significantly more involved in your day to day life than your landline (if you even still have one of those). I think twice before placing my mobile number on any provider.
I agree very much. I really like the features of Google Voice, especially the call screening. And I hate the way AT&T doesn't let me set up spam filters for text messages, happily charging me for crap I don't want. So I'd love to have the power of GV to block those before they ever hit my mobile number.
But Google does a sorry job of personalized customer service, and yes, for a phone, I want that.
I'm basically a Google fanboy, and my wife accuses me of thinking everything they do is perfect. And even I see this as a problem.
I think Google will have to get more serious about customer service to become a major, primary provider of phone numbers.
It's really easy to get customer service from G. They provide, free, to each customer their famous "fuck off and die while we totally ignore you" brand of customer service that has propelled them to the very bottom of JD Power Customer Service Surveys.
Or, you can have a blog with huge reach and bitch on that, whence Matt Cutts will swoop out of the sky to cover up their fuckups. viz slow email and Gabriel Weinberg.
So the real question is if you complain on the internet, how many people hear you?
Honestly, letting G get their hands on anything that's critical to your life seems an enormous mistake, unless it wouldn't be a big problem for you if your phone stops working.
I blogged awhile back about porting your mobile, land line, or Google Voice number into Twilio for free and hang onto it for just $1/month. You can also make it so your landline numbers can send/receive SMS once they're ported
Please be warned. I've been a longtime google voice user and for the past few months text messages from AT&T senders have been dropping silently at a very high rate. This is a very bad problem as the sender thinks you have received the message.
I've written to google about 10 times about this over the past couple of months and have gotten no reply and the problem continues to occur. Searches of their help site indicate that this is a medium-spread problem. Caveat Emptor.
What does "After porting your number to Google Voice your mobile service plan will be cancelled.." mean? I am on AT&T; does this mean I am no more a part of AT&T?
It works like this:
1) You port your number to GV. That has the effect of cancelling your carrier plan - you're no longer their customer. (Same as if you ported from Carrier A to Carrier B.) You may have to pay early termination fees.
2) You then start over with your carrier (or a new one) - say "please give me service with a brand new number. Oh look, I already have a phone."
3) Once your cell phone has a number, you put that into GV as a forwarding number.
Now the number that everyone already knows is your GV number, and you can keep your mobile number a secret if you like.
You will be assigned a new number from AT&T. You will then point your ported (existing) number from Google Voice to the new number AT&T assigns you. Note, if you're currently in contract, you are subject to early termination fees. This is not any different than porting from AT&T to another carrier such as VZW in as far as they are concerned - even if you are simply getting a new number from the same carrier.
I just finished the process of moving my number over. I had some issues calling the ported number from Skype, and as has been mentioned, there is no support from google. More on my experience here:
That is strange. I worked on the NPAC (Number Portability Administration Center) software. I also worked on WLNP. There isn't a technical reason why this won't work. Full number portability is supported in the US and Canada. Wireless porting simplified the process and eased the requirements to port numbers. My best guess is that, they would be able to port land lines in the not too distant future, once they meet the requirements for land line porting.
