Obi200 porting landline to Google Voice
titustroy:
I know this has probably been asked a million times but this is my first time using a phone service outside of my cable company and I want to make sure I'm doing it correctly (I'm in NYC)...I read the instructions online about porting my landline number to a cell phone first and then Google Voice but I currently do not have a cell phone
https://www.obitalk.com/info/tutorials/porttutorial
can I just buy any cheap pre-paid phone from Best Buy, Walmart etc and it will work or does it need to be a specific type?...so even if I buy the cheapest phone possible it'll work fine?...how many minutes do I need to put on it to play it safe?...anyone have any links to some cheap burner phones that would work well for this
thanks for any help
SteveInWA:
Here's my detailed answer: https://productforums.google.com/d/msg/voice/Vb1Ith05iN0/2nteZMGtBAAJ
A_Friend:
Faced with this same problem, I decided to port my phone number to a paid voip service, so I'd have a little more assurance of ownership. Not that I don't trust Google Voice, but it's free and not guaranteed to stick around. And, if they ever decide to end that experiment (I mean, what is the business model for GV, anyway? I don't see where they get much of a revenue stream from it, and it has to cost money to give away free phone calls. At some point, one of the number crunchers is going to recommend dropping it, and they are a for-profit entity.), I'll still have my original landline.
As a result, all calls to my old landline phone number(s) ring directly to my Obi202, and I use my Google Voice number for outgoing calls. So, I essentially have two lines, one I use primarily for outgoing and one for incoming. As a bonus, I actually forward my incoming GV calls to the landline number, so anyone who dials that number back still comes in on my incoming line. (As a bonus, I also managed a 4-way conference call once using the Obi202!)
I'm using Callcentric for one number and voip.ms for the other. Each company's offerings have strength. I find voip.ms charges a little less (and if you don't get a lot of incoming calls, you can park your DID there for $1/month and just pay for usage, and their flat rate deal isn't bad, either), but Callcentric gives out free DIDs. I use one of the latter with their free incoming fax service. I use another (I have two paid accounts with them) as a dial-in number for AutoAttendant from my cell phone (very useful for when you don't have a wifi connection or want to use your data).
So, you should look into the commercial voip world, check out the features and reviews of a few services and see if you're willing to pay for at least part of your telephone service. You'll need one anyway, if you want to keep 911 service, and you do want to keep 911 service.
drgeoff:
Quote from: A_Friend on July 12, 2018, 01:32:07 am
I mean, what is the business model for GV, anyway? I don't see where they get much of a revenue stream from it, and it has to cost money to give away free phone calls.
Just like any other telco or cable company, GV receives a termination fee for incoming calls to GV numbers. Unlike other telcos and cable companies GV has no "last mile" costs and has a much less costly switching system than the myriad of LOs constrained to be within a limited distance of end users.
I'm not saying that GV directly covers its costs, just that they may not be as much as you think.
A_Friend:
Quote from: drgeoff on July 12, 2018, 03:37:43 am
I'm not saying that GV directly covers its costs, just that they may not be as much as you think.
I'm pretty sure it costs them SOMETHING to offer the service. There's no advertising, so that doesn't contribute to their income. Even if somehow they turn a modest profit, someday someone might decide it's not a worthwhile line of business compared to whatever it is they decide their core business is, and poof!, it'll be gone. TANSTAAFL, you know?
Meanwhile, it's great while it lasts, and I intend to use it to the last drop. It just doesn't seem prudent to plan on depending on it.
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