Using GV Alone For Home Phone
ceg3:
Quote from: Taoman on August 07, 2019, 05:25:20 pm
Quote from: ceg3 on August 07, 2019, 04:22:30 pm
It's not as if you can't call 911 with GV.
Not sure what you mean exactly by that statement. You can't dial 911 and have it route thru Google Voice without first transposing the number to a regular 10-digit POTS number. Such as {(<911:5558884321>):spX}
Is that what you mean? I do this but only because my local PSAP has an emergency 10-digit POTS number that has the same priority as a regular E911 call. But as you say, you would still have to give the PSAP call center your address/physical location.
OK. You are telling me something I didn't know but I wasn't really looking for comments on 911. The post just veered off track a little. I have of course known for years GV isn't suitable for 911, and I've never thought about it much or tried to dial it. I might think about it some more.
What I am really looking for is feedback from people just using GV on a daily basis as the only home phone service. I would assume if you want 911 you have signed up for it. I haven't relied on GV in years and I know it's improved a lot, so I just wondered how's it working for people. I'm planning to drop PhonePower soon and just use GV.
Taoman:
Quote from: ceg3 on August 07, 2019, 06:30:16 pm
You are telling me something I didn't know but I wasn't really looking for comments on 911.
Understood. I just didn't want you (or anyone reading your post) to think you could just dial 911 with Google Voice and have it connect to your local PSAP call center. It simply won't work without first transposing 911 to a 10-digit number.
I've been using GV as my "primary" number since GV was in beta and the first Obi ATA was released. For the vast majority of the time it has worked great. But I wouldn't recommend using GV/OBi as your one and only source for telephony. At the very least, you should also have a cell phone that works (has reliable coverage) in your home.
For instance, this morning I had a long conversation with a friend who was using his cell phone from home (Verizon) and I was using my OBi. But the call would get choppy and actually dropped a couple times. This was not the fault of the OBi or GV. He has an extremely poor signal (-124 dBm) inside his trailer. So I ended up having to switch to my Verizon cell phone to have a decent conversation. This is rare but it does happen on occasion.
If you don't have a cell phone with good coverage in your home there are other options.
ceg3:
Good point. I did incorrectly leave the impression you actually can dial 911 using GV just by entering 911. I've been using OBi for quite a long time and as I stated earlier I've never really thought about GV and 911. I do have a mobile phone. I can imagine GV might not be as reliable as a paid service. What having a home phone such as GV is good for is sitting on hold using a speaker phone waiting for some support rep to come back to the phone. I have a couple of months before PhonePower renews, so I will just use GV exclusively to see how it works. I don't use the phone very much to begin with. I often think I've been PP best customer for five years, because I use them so little. Thanks for the info.
SteveInWA:
If you don't use the phone much, then it doesn't matter which service provider you use. Google Voice works fine. I've been using it for the large majority of my calls for years. However, to emphasize the previous posts about 911 service, I would strongly advise signing up for E911 service from Callcentric (Google Voice on SP1 and Callcentric on SP2). It is a very bad idea to have a land line telephone sitting around, with no 911 service. You might remember that it won't work, but in a true emergency, especially if YOU are the person having a medical or police emergency, you may not be thinking straight, or you may be unconscious or in shock, and you, or whoever else happens to pick up that phone to call 911 will waste precious minutes trying and retrying to call 911, to no avail. The cost is so low as to be a no-brainer to subscribe.
ceg3:
Quote from: SteveInWA on August 08, 2019, 12:59:19 am
If you don't use the phone much, then it doesn't matter which service provider you use. Google Voice works fine. I've been using it for the large majority of my calls for years. However, to emphasize the previous posts about 911 service, I would strongly advise signing up for E911 service from Callcentric (Google Voice on SP1 and Callcentric on SP2). It is a very bad idea to have a land line telephone sitting around, with no 911 service. You might remember that it won't work, but in a true emergency, especially if YOU are the person having a medical or police emergency, you may not be thinking straight, or you may be unconscious or in shock, and you, or whoever else happens to pick up that phone to call 911 will waste precious minutes trying and retrying to call 911, to no avail. The cost is so low as to be a no-brainer to subscribe.
Good advice. Interesting thing just happened. Having never ever considered dialing 911 from GV, after the discussion I couldn't resist the temptation, so I dialed. This is hardly a recommendation, but as expected the call simply clicked off, but instantly I got a call from the police and .... caller ID actually displayed The Town of ..... They said any time someone dials 911 they call you back, even if you hang up. Oh, I may have just figured it out. I still have PhonePower as SIP 1 and even though I have all calls forwarded to my GV number in my PhonePower dashboard the 911 service is likely still working. GV is phone 1. On the other hand maybe that's not right. Interesting anyway.
Update. Oh wow, guess who just knocked loudly on my door. Yep the police. I don't think I'll ever dial 911 on any phone and hang up again. ;D
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