OBiTALK Community

Region Specific Technical / Service Provider Support => North America - Including Google Voice, Skype, etc. => Topic started by: bigRoN18 on February 11, 2019, 08:13:23 PM

Title: Using Google Voice for fax
Post by: bigRoN18 on February 11, 2019, 08:13:23 PM
I have had my Google Voice number for quite some time, but I use it primarily as a way to route incoming calls to either my cellphone or to another number. Way back when I started with Google Voice, I had Vonage, and I routed my Google Voice number to it, but I closed my Vonage account several years ago and have no landline service at the moment.

Now, I do not need to use a fax machine all that frequently, but there are times where I need to use one. I have a fairly nice color, multi-function laser printer/scanner/fax machine. As I don't have a landline, I can't really use the fax feature of my multi-function machine. Instead, I've tried using services that I can send what I want to fax and give them the fax number to send it to, or I can give someone my online fax number and I'll receive an email with an attached PDF of the received fax message. This is OK, but the online fax services charge monthly fees. I may go months without the need to fax anything, then fax quite a few things in a short period of time. I would love to be able to use my multi-function as a fax for those rare times and only pay a small one-time fee.

Now, as I've mentioned, I've been using Google Voice number, but I don't really want to get phone calls that are actually fax calls, so I'm thinking I'll need to somehow get another Google Voice number... is it possible to have two Google Voice numbers on one account or do I need to set it up Google Voice on a completely different Google account?

How is using Google Voice for faxing? Back when I had Vonage, I had a terrible time with sending faxes from an older, basic fax machine. I had to put it in "overseas mode" before attempting to fax anything anywhere. Are there hidden frustrations like that when using something like the OBi202? Are outgoing and incoming faxes still kind of a crapshoot, where they frequently fail or is it fairly reliable now?

Lastly, if I were to get the OBi202, which has two line capability, could I have my current Google Voice number be on one line and set up a new line from a different account on the second line of the device?

I've noticed some people commenting about audio problems and wondering if bandwidth was the issue or something else. For what it's worth, I have synchronous gigabit Internet (theoretical 1 gbps up and down... in testing to speed test servers in San Francisco, I'm seeing about 750 mbps download and 850 mbps upload with ping times of <10ms and jitter of 1-2ms. Funny thing with those speed tests, SF is about 100 miles away; Sacramento, which is about 10-15 miles away is not as good, but still several hundreds of mbps up and down and ping and jitter quite low.
Title: Re: Using Google Voice for fax
Post by: highgrade on March 28, 2019, 06:01:58 PM
You should have no problem with faxing i have a obi 202 and i have no problem with fax