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Obi202 & Google Voice -- Separate GV account for fax line?

Started by JonS, May 12, 2017, 05:05:46 PM

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JonS

Hi.

This is my first post to the forum, and I apologize if I'm posting this incorrectly.  I've been searching the web for a while for answers to my situation, but alas, I'm coming up dry (and my eyes are glazing over).  I'm hoping I can get some guidance here on this forum.


Here's the situation :

- I have two land line numbers I want to replace with GV/Obi202 -- a voice number and a fax number.

- I have successfully ported the voice land line number to GV & Obi202.

- Things are configured so when someone calls my voice number, it not only rings at home (via the Obi202) but also rings my cell phone that is associated with the GV account.  Cool.  I like that.

- I now need to port my fax number to GV & associate it with the second port on the Obi202, however, I want it set up so when people call the fax number, it does *not* ring my cell phone.


I'm looking for the best way to set this up.  I didn't know if either of the following would work:


=== Plan A : Have both numbers on my GV account ===

- I port the fax number to my existing GV account as my second phone number (GV allows you to have two phone numbers associated with a single GV account).

- I configure *something* (GV? Obi202?) so that calls to the fax number ring the home phone but not my cell phone.

Q: Can GV numbers be configured so that one rings the cell phone but the other one doesn't?


=== Plan B : Second GV account ===

- I register for a second GV account and have the fax number ported to that account.

- I configure the second port on the Obi202 to be associated with this new GV account, and thus, have it configured separately so calls to the fax number do not ring my cell phone.

Q: Can the Obi202 support two different GV accounts (one GV account per port on the Obi202)?


Thank you for your time (and suggestions).  I'm ready to move forward with porting the fax number, but want to make sure I don't go down the wrong path.

-Jon
5/12/2017

SteveInWA

Hi Jon:

Plan A won't work, because Google Voice doesn't differentiate inbound calls based on the called number (all inbound calls, to either number, follow the same forwarding settings).

Plan B will work fine.  The OBi 202 supports up to four separate Google Voice accounts, and you can steer the inbound calls to either of the two physical phone line jacks.

To avoid confusion and mistakes during porting and setup, be sure to log completely off GV account #1, before working with account #2.

JonS

Hi Steve.

Thanks for the quick reply and good information.  I will proceed with Plan B (is that like "Plan 9 from Outer Space"...?  Hmmmm...  :-)

Concerning your comment about completely logging out, are you meaning log out of GV from my browser, or are you meaning on logging out of (disconnecting?) GV from my Obi202 setup?

Thanks.

-Jon

SteveInWA

I meant, in more detail:

Google Voice is a service that is tied to a Google account, just like Gmail, Docs, Maps, Drive, Calendar, etc.  You will be working with two different Google accounts on your web browser.  Google allows browsers to have multiple accounts signed in at the same time in the same browser.  This can lead to problems with certain procedures, such as submitting payments, or human errors such as typing into the wrong account.  So, while performing the number porting, log out of all other Google/Gmail accounts on your browser, except for the one into which you want to port the number.  Or, just open a private or incognito browsing session (Ctrl-Shift-P for Firefox/MSIE, or Ctrl-Shift-N for Google Chrome Browser).

You will end up with two separate Google accounts, each with its own GV number.  You will have one OBiTALK account, with the OBi 202 assigned to it, and you will perform the Google Voice setup from the OBiTALK portal page, by clicking on the desired SP1-SP4 slot.  The GV setup procedure will either ask you to sign into the desired Google account, or, if you already signed into it in another browser tab, then it will ask you to look at the Gmail address displayed and confirm that it is the correct account to use.

JonS

Hi Steve.

Ok, got it.  Thank you *very* much for this information -- it really clears up the whole process.  I'll go give it a try now...

Take care, and have a wonderful day!  :-)

-Jon
5/16/2017

JonS

Hi again, Steve.

Just a follow-up that I got it working -- thank you for all your help!

A couple notes of interest :

(1) By default, GV is configured for Call Screening is ON and the "Ask unknown callers to say their name" is checked, which meant when I called the fax number from my cell phone just to test the connection, I was first asked (by GV) to say my name.  Oops!  I went in to my GV configuration and turned Call Screening OFF, and all was good.

(2) At one point, on the GV page under the Phones tab I unchecked the "Forward calls to: Google chat" thinking that I didn't want to have anything ring on any browser on the off-chance that the browser was logged into my new 'fax' Google account.  Well, that caused GV to no longer ring my Obihai box (SP2) line.  It took a long time for me to figure out that I needed to enable forwarding calls to Google Chat in order for the Obihai SP2 line to ring.  I'm not sure exactly why that's necessary, but I can live with it.

Now, if I can just get the Caller-Id Name (CNAM) working with my 'voice' line (SP1), I'll be a happy camper...  :-)

Thanks again!

-Jon

SteveInWA

By default, call screening should have been disabled, but I'm glad you figured it out.

When someone calls your Google Voice inbound telephone number, it rings all check-marked destinations:  Google Chat and all regular 10-digit linked phone numbers, and all Google Hangouts clients that are individually set to ring on inbound calls.  OBi devices act as Google Chat clients.  When you set up Google Voice access on the OBi, you gave the OBi permission to use the Chat service on your Google account.  Chat isn't used for anything else, aside from supporting OBi products.  Google has obsoleted all its own Chat clients.  The only web browser or app-based VoIP calling service on Google is now supported by Hangouts.

Google Voice does not support CNAM, just the numeric caller ID.  There are countless posts here on the forum discussing these particular topics.


JonS

> OBi devices act as Google Chat clients.

Ah!  I did not realize this.  That clears it up.  :-)


Regarding CNAM support, yeah, I'm reading through posts right now, and I see references to Callcentric.  I'll dig deeper into that.  I'm also considering setting up an Asterisk server (been thinking about this for a few years now), and have it do CNAM lookup.  The biggest thing is finding the time to set it up and configure it...  ;-)

Cheers!

-Jon