New User - How to Help Parents Living Outside USA

[Dave-in-TN]

Hey everyone! I hope I'm posting in the right forum. If not, let me know where I should be posting. After 20 years of having 1 landline and 2 cell phones at home, I'm trying something new. And, while I'm at it, I want to see if I can help my parents as well.

For my home, I have purchased a OBI200 (should arrive Friday), and I have set up a GV account to which I have ported our old landline number (using Tello Mobile as the intermediate step). Based on what I've read, I think I can handle that.

Now for the real challenge (at least for me). My parents have lived in the same location in the U.S. for 20+ years and have had the same phone number the whole time. Most recently, they had XFinity cable and phone service. They are now living in Guatemala City and will be there for the next 18 months. Their number is currently with ParkMyPhone. I'd love to know how to put together a setup that would allow them to port their number from ParkMyPhone to a GV account and have an OBI device in their apartment that would connect to my OBI device and allow them to use their number to make and receive U.S. calls.

What hardware would I need, and how would I go about setting it up? Would another OBI200 suffice? Or do I need to get an OBI202 to put in my house and send them the OBI200 so that I can use my GV account/number separately from their GV account/number? Or, if they wanted to just use the GV app on their cell phones (which currently have Guatemala numbers), could they get by without having to have an OBI device on their end?

Please enlighten me! I've been reading and watching videos for a day and a half, and my head is spinning!

Thanks!

[SteveInWA]

You can't easily solve that problem using Google Voice.

Instead:  don't touch your parents' number.  Let it stay parked.  Buy an OBi 200, just perform the basic **5 setup procedure to add it to your dashboard and give it a nickname and set a IVR PIN.  End the setup.

Write down the nine-digit OBi numbers on the bottom of your original OBi and the new OBi.  Pick up the phone attached to your original OBi and press **9 xxx xxx xxx, replacing the x's with the new OBi's OBi number.  The phone plugged into THAT OBi should ring and you should be able to have a two-way conversation.

If this worked, then mail them the OBi.  They can call your OBi number the same way, to reach you, and vice-versa.  The calls will be free.

[azrobert]

You can setup the OBi200 with another GV account before sending it to your parents. Now they can receive or make calls to any USA number.

[Dave-in-TN]

You can't easily solve that problem using Google Voice.

Instead:  don't touch your parents' number.  Let it stay parked.  Buy an OBi 200, just perform the basic **5 setup procedure to add it to your dashboard and give it a nickname and set a IVR PIN.  End the setup.

Write down the nine-digit OBi numbers on the bottom of your original OBi and the new OBi.  Pick up the phone attached to your original OBi and press **9 xxx xxx xxx, replacing the x's with the new OBi's OBi number.  The phone plugged into THAT OBi should ring and you should be able to have a two-way conversation.

If this worked, then mail them the OBi.  They can call your OBi number the same way, to reach you, and vice-versa.  The calls will be free.

Thanks to both of you who replied (as well as the person who replied to this issue in my other post)!

@SteveInWA, that sounds like the way to go if I were trying to set up a way for us to call each other. But that's not really what I'm trying to do.

What I'm really trying to accomplish is to be able to

• Give my parents access to their existing number to make/receive calls to/from anyone in the U.S. without having to pay international calling rates or a monthly fee to some other provider. When a call comes into their number, I only want it to ring in Guatemala. When they want to place a call from Guatemala to the U.S., I want it to go through their GV account with their number showing on the recipient's caller ID.

• Use existing phone hardware with my own GV account for making/receiving calls at my house that is separate from my parents' number. This is a replacement for my landline that I've had for 20+ years. No connection to or interaction with my parents' number/account.

Given all of that, I'm trying to figure out

• is what I'm trying to accomplish possible?
• if so, what hardware do I need?
• how do I set up the hardware and account settings to achieve the scenario described above?

I know they'll need an OBi200 on their end. Can I get by with an OBi200 on my end or do I need an OBi202 since I want to manage two GV accounts completely separate from each other?

[drgeoff]

There is no difference between a 200 and a 202 regarding the number of GV and/or SIP accounts.  The only difference is the 1 versus 2 phone sockets.  The 202 can have two independent simultaneous calls on the two phones plugged in to it.  Clearly the 200 cannot do that.  But it can have a call using the plugged in phone at the same time as another call going through the 200.

[SteveInWA]

What I'm really trying to accomplish is to be able to

Give my parents access to their existing number to make/receive calls to/from anyone in the U.S. without having to pay international calling rates or a monthly fee to some other provider. When a call comes into their number, I only want it to ring in Guatemala. When they want to place a call from Guatemala to the U.S., I want it to go through their GV account with their number showing on the recipient's caller ID.

Use existing phone hardware with my own GV account for making/receiving calls at my house that is separate from my parents' number. This is a replacement for my landline that I've had for 20+ years. No connection to or interaction with my parents' number/account.

Given all of that, I'm trying to figure out

is what I'm trying to accomplish possible?
if so, what hardware do I need?
how do I set up the hardware and account settings to achieve the scenario described above?

It sounds like you are not familiar with the way multiple OBi devices are managed on one OBiTALK account's dashboard.

You can have multiple, completely independent devices assigned to your OBiTALK account.  In your case, whatever you want to do with your own OBi at your own, US location, will have no effect on whatever you set up for your parents.  Your parents' device would not be calling through any of your equipment.

You'd simply set up two OBi 200 devices; one for yourself, and one that you'd ship to them after setup.

The non-trivial part would be setting up Google Voice for them, because Google Voice will not port in land line/VoIP numbers.  You would have to:

• First, check that the number can be ported into Google Voice.  GV cannot port in every number.
• 
  
  • Port their currently-parked phone number to a true mobile phone carrier.
  • Wait a full week for the port to complete and be broadcast out to all the carriers.
  • Port the now-mobile number into Google Voice.
  • Provision that Google Voice service on an OBi 200 and then ship it to them.
  
  A simpler, more direct option would be to not use Google Voice for their number.  Port it directly into a SIP VoIP service provider like voip.ms or Callcentric, then provision that service on their OBi.  I recommend this option, since it is much easier and less likely to encounter problems.  Also note that the consumer version of Google Voice is a USA-only service.  There is no guarantee that Google will not, at some point, detect and block the use of the device from outside the USA.  Foreign use of US GV numbers for fraud has been increasing, and so Google may take measures to block it.
  
  In both cases, they will have a US phone number on their OBi device, regardless of the country in which it is located.