With basic landline setup will answering machine still work as normal?

[HunterT]

Hello, I just ordered the OBi101 off of Amazon.com. Could someone please tell me if what I am trying to do is going to work.

My Grandmother currently has 1 landline phone number with Verizon. I am aware of all of the crazy porting I have to do to get this number active on Google Voice.

Her current equipment is:

• OBi101
• Highspeed Cable Internet w/ Linksys WiFi Router
• 1 corded landline phone (doesn't need power)
• 2 cordless landline phones (w/ base station which has an answering machine and secondary station)

My ultimate goal is to take her landline number that shes had for years, port it from Verizon to AT&t GoPhone then finally to Google Voice. Plug the OBi101 into my router, then hook up her landline phones to it so they all use the same #.

My only question is: Is there a way to keep her answering machine (the main base station) still functioning like normal?

Also, if anyone can recommend any other possible setups (possibly through something other then Google Voice) to avoid this ridiculous # porting. I am willing to pay small monthly fees.

[Rick]

Hello, I just ordered the OBi101 off of Amazon.com. Could someone please tell me if what I am trying to do is going to work.

My Grandmother currently has 1 landline phone number with Verizon. I am aware of all of the crazy porting I have to do to get this number active on Google Voice.

Her current equipment is:

• OBi101
• Highspeed Cable Internet w/ Linksys WiFi Router
• 1 corded landline phone (doesn't need power)
• 2 cordless landline phones (w/ base station which has an answering machine and secondary station)

My ultimate goal is to take her landline number that shes had for years, port it from Verizon to AT&t GoPhone then finally to Google Voice. Plug the OBi101 into my router, then hook up her landline phones to it so they all use the same #.

My only question is: Is there a way to keep her answering machine (the main base station) still functioning like normal?

Also, if anyone can recommend any other possible setups (possibly through something other then Google Voice) to avoid this ridiculous # porting. I am willing to pay small monthly fees.

Hopefully you bought an OBi 110 or 100...

The ONLY way to keep her answering machine function is to get it to answer before 25 seconds, which is when GoogleVoicemail will answer.  That means she has to answer the phone quite quickly before the answering machine grabs it.  Did you take that into account?  

Also, how do you plan on providing 911 to her?

How do you plan on providing her with phone service when you port her landline and she has to call 911 and the power (and internet) is out?  Or when the internet is down and the power isn't?

I wouldn't consider dropping a landline for an elderly person.  Adding a 110 to keep her landline and add free long distance with GV - that makes sense.

[HunterT]

Sorry can't believe I got the model # wrong, I meant OBi 110. As far as emergency purposes, she is 95 years old and me and my girlfriend will both be living with her full time. She also has a cell phone. Don't think I'm too worried about power outages and internet service interruption.

Could you possibly rephrase what you said because I am a bit confused?
Currently the way her phones work is about 6-8 rings to give her time to get to the phone and then her answering machine service will come on saying "Hi you have reached blah blah blah" if she doesn't get to it in time. I am going to try and keep this same functionality. Please let me know if I will lose this. My main concern is for her to still be able to check her messages using the base station and for people to leave messages to the base station.

Here is the phone system she has:
http://www.amazon.com/VTech-CS6429-Cordless-Silver-Handset/dp/B004OA6X4Y/ref=sr_1_6?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1364401600&sr=1-6&keywords=vtech+cordless+phone

[Rick]

Sorry can't believe I got the model # wrong, I meant OBi 110. As far as emergency purposes, she is 95 years old and me and my girlfriend will both be living with her full time. She also has a cell phone. Don't think I'm too worried about power outages and internet service interruption.

Could you possibly rephrase what you said because I am a bit confused?
Currently the way her phones work is about 6-8 rings to give her time to get to the phone and then her answering machine service will come on saying "Hi you have reached blah blah blah" if she doesn't get to it in time. I am going to try and keep this same functionality. Please let me know if I will lose this. My main concern is for her to still be able to check her messages using the base station and for people to leave messages to the base station.

Here is the phone system she has:
http://www.amazon.com/VTech-CS6429-Cordless-Silver-Handset/dp/B004OA6X4Y/ref=sr_1_6?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1364401600&sr=1-6&keywords=vtech+cordless+phone

Ok, I'll be clearer.  YOU WILL LOSE THIS.  

Google Voice picks up in 25 seconds.  Period.  Can't change that.  So, if you want the answering machine to get the message, and not Google Voice, then you have to make it answer before then.  That's like 4 rings.  So, if you make her run and she falls and can't get up...

[HunterT]

So your saying with a Google Voice service setup to work with land-line phones will only give you up to 25 seconds before Google Voicemail service takes the message. Meaning these messages can only be checked online or on a mobile device. But if in the Vtech settings I set the phone to a certain amount of rings that falls under 25 seconds then the normal answering machine service will kick in and Google Voicemail will assume the phone was answered.

Also for emergencies isn't there like $2.49 services through voip companies?

[infin8loop]

Setup a single digit speed dial on the OBi to dial your own GV phone number. Let's say speed dial 2 because 1 is forced to a softphone in the OBiTalk portal.  Then just dial 2# to check voice mail. 

[HunterT]

Ok so your saying to use Google Voicemail and you just gave me an easy way of checking it through the landline phone? I guess this will be an alternative solution to the one we were talking about above.

Is there a way of disabling Google Voicemail and still using Google Voice? On cell phones there is, so shouldn't it work with Landlines too?

[Rick]

So your saying with a Google Voice service setup to work with land-line phones will only give you up to 25 seconds before Google Voicemail service takes the message. Meaning these messages can only be checked online or on a mobile device. But if in the Vtech settings I set the phone to a certain amount of rings that falls under 25 seconds then the normal answering machine service will kick in and Google Voicemail will assume the phone was answered.

Also for emergencies isn't there like $2.49 services through voip companies?

Yes that's exactly what I'm saying. 

Yes, you can buy E911 from different companies since Google Voice doesn't offer it.

[Rick]

Ok so your saying to use Google Voicemail and you just gave me an easy way of checking it through the landline phone? I guess this will be an alternative solution to the one we were talking about above.

Is there a way of disabling Google Voicemail and still using Google Voice? On cell phones there is, so shouldn't it work with Landlines too?

No, you cannot disable it.  Yes, it's quite easy to get to retrieve messages via website, email sent to you, OR by calling your number and retrieving the messages via the phone.  You can program in the number, and the pin, to a speed dial on the phone and retrieve it easily.  And, when you have a message the message indicator flashes and the phone has a stutter sound.

That said, for a 95 year old to learn a new way to retrieve phone messages is a challenge.  Your MUCH, MUCH bigger challenge is to teach her not to run for the phone to beat the machine.  I speak from experience with a 92 and 91 year old set of in-laws.  The phone rings and they run for it, even though their machine picks up like 8 rings later (no internet, no OBi).  It's just in their nature.

[Lavarock7]

An alternative might be to port the phone number to Voip.Ms, which has free porting at the moment.

Then just grit your teeth and pay $1 or $1.50 a month and a cent a minute or so.

[HunterT]

Alright, would Voip.ms be just to port the land-line number over to something that will be able to be ported to Google Voice or will it be replacing Google Voice completely. I am fine with a small payment either way. Is Google Voice truly the better way to go?

[Rick]

Alright, would Voip.ms be just to port the land-line number over to something that will be able to be ported to Google Voice or will it be replacing Google Voice completely. I am fine with a small payment either way. Is Google Voice truly the better way to go?

Voip.ms has nothing to do with GV.  You can use GV or most/any VoIP providers.  GV is free.  Others are not.  GV, as a free product, while offering nice capability doesn't let you do things like not answer after 25 seconds.

You need to review your goals and pick a solution that meets them.  Are they:

1) Save Grandma money by eliminating POTS line
2) Replace POTS line with dependable service
3) New service to be significantly less than POTS service
4) New service to be easy to use
5) New service leaves messages on Grandma's answering machine, so she's comfortable with the change
6) Keeping old phone number


Also - please don't have two dialogs going on the same issue.  This post: http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=5594.0 is the same topic.  Pick one, then on the other one please put a line and refer the discussion to the one you want to keep going.  Having two just wastes the time of the volunteers answering your questions.   

[HunterT]

Alright, I am sorry I will close one of the posts.

Here are the answers to your questions so maybe you can tell me what would be right for me:

1) Yes I want to eliminate the POTS line completely.
2) Yes I want to replace the POTS line with dependable service (including e911 through a separate voip company if necessary)
3) I want the new service to be significantly less than POTS service (why not go free, is what I'm thinking)
4) I expect the new service to be easy to use for her once the setup is complete. I am hoping almost everything will seem the same for her. I wouldn't want to have to change anything on her. I think she can deal with the under 25 seconds of ringing. That would be at least 5-6 rings I guess.
5) Yes I want the new service to leave messages on Grandma's answering machine still so she is comfortable with the change. I can't have this any other way.
6) She 100% needs to keep her old #

I prefer using Google Voice because I am obsessed with Google and I know they are reliable with anything they release, but at the same time I know the voip companies with a monthly fee will give me way more features and possibly better call quality. If I did go with a voip company I would need it to be one that doesn't send you their own adapter, because I want to use the OBi adapter that I ordered. So if there are any companies who don't charge much and are reliable I welcome all recommendations.

It seems that Google Voice is the perfect fit, besides the 25 second thing. No idea why Google doesn't have a setting for that yet.

If you can come up with a game plan for me based on what I just told you that would be amazing and I will stop trolling your forums haha.

Thanks so much for your help.

[Rick]

Alright, I am sorry I will close one of the posts.

Here are the answers to your questions so maybe you can tell me what would be right for me:

1) Yes I want to eliminate the POTS line completely.
2) Yes I want to replace the POTS line with dependable service (including e911 through a separate voip company if necessary)
3) I want the new service to be significantly less than POTS service (why not go free, is what I'm thinking)
4) I expect the new service to be easy to use for her once the setup is complete. I am hoping almost everything will seem the same for her. I wouldn't want to have to change anything on her. I think she can deal with the under 25 seconds of ringing. That would be at least 5-6 rings I guess.
5) Yes I want the new service to leave messages on Grandma's answering machine still so she is comfortable with the change. I can't have this any other way.
6) She 100% needs to keep her old #

I prefer using Google Voice because I am obsessed with Google and I know they are reliable with anything they release, but at the same time I know the voip companies with a monthly fee will give me way more features and possibly better call quality. If I did go with a voip company I would need it to be one that doesn't send you their own adapter, because I want to use the OBi adapter that I ordered. So if there are any companies who don't charge much and are reliable I welcome all recommendations.

It seems that Google Voice is the perfect fit, besides the 25 second thing. No idea why Google doesn't have a setting for that yet.

Thanks so much for your help.

It's not 5 or 6 rings.  She has to answer the phone in 4 rings or it will go to GV voicemail. 

I don't use the VoIP providers.  You can easily setup E911 service through different ones - although I would stay away from Callcentric which had a HUGE denial of service issue then the storm knocked out their server power (no backup generators).  They are not reliable for E911 IMHO. 

If you can teach Grandma to not run for the phone, and you can set her machine to answer before the 25 seconds are up (i.e. ideally after 4 rings), then using GV with E911 through a 3rd party should work.

Note - you can easily test things with GV and the number they give you to set the answering machine and test it out BEFORE you think about porting.

As noted on the other thread, when you port Grandma will have a period of time where the home phone will not receive calls but may make them, followed by the porting cell doing everything, after which you port to GV in 24 hours.  You'll need to tell her to basically user her iPhone except when the house phone rings until you finish the port.

[infin8loop]

GV is great but being a free service, when things go wrong, support can be sketchy to non-existent.

You might consider using both GV and voip.ms.   Port grandma's number to voip.ms for free during their current special.  The DID (phone number) will cost you $1.49 a month. The $20 you save by not paying GV to port will cover 13 months of DID service. And you will save additional cost and grief by not having to port the landline through a cellphone in order to get it on GV.  You can then either pay by the minute .0149 cents for incoming calls to her number or get a monthly flat rate incoming plan at $6.95 (which includes the $1.49 for the DID) for up to 3500 minutes. So the break-even between the per minute and flat rate is about 366 minutes ((6.95 - 1.49) / .0149).  I'm on the per minute and have never exceeded the 366 minutes.  Outbound U.S. calls will cost $0.0105 per minute value route or $0.0125 per minute premium route or use google voice for outbound for free.  You can fund voip.ms with a mininum payment of $25. I suggest paypal to avoid annoying international transaction fee that may apply on a credit or debit card since voip.ms is based in Canada.  Callerid name lookup at voip.ms will be .008 (8 tenths of a cent) per call but add her frequent callers to her voip.ms address book and they will be free.  You won't get incoming callerid name lookup on GV unless you jump through more work-around hoops that are covered elsewhere in this forum.  Less an issue if you have everyone in the phone's address book.

Use google voice number for her outbound calls for free. Except 911 will be be configured to route through voip.ms.  911 service at voip.ms will cost another $1.50 setup and $1.50 per month.

The costs above are for my ratecenter. Your numbers may be higher or lower, but probably not significantly.

This setup works well for us.  I don't have 911 activated on voip.ms so cannot comment on it's reliability. Our frequent callers call our google voice number for free.  The myriad of other callers, doctors, dentists, etc. that have the former long-time AT&T number continue to call that number and they now come in through voip.ms. We use google voice for outbound.

It took about 20 days to port the AT&T landline to voip.ms.  AT&T held the number until the current billing cycle ended. We had already paid through this date (pay ahead invoicing), so it wasn't a big deal.

All said and done, you will have a real voip provider (voip.ms) that you can configure and GV for what I will guess is significantly less per month than Verizon.  If it doesn't work out you haven't lost much. The port is free (for now) and the voip.ms balance is refundable.

[HunterT]

Thanks for the great advice. I am most likely going to go the voip.ms route. Will this solve the 25 second answering machine problem?

[Rick]

Thanks for the great advice. I am most likely going to go the voip.ms route. Will this solve the 25 second answering machine problem?

The 25 seconds is unique to Google.  If you're going to use another VoIP provider, you should check and see IF they have voicemail, and if so when it picks up or if it can be disabled.

[Lavarock7]

I might suggest playing with Voip.Ms as I did before the cutover.

I found creating sub accounts to be the best way for me to handle my situation. If you create a subaccount for yourself and for Grandma, you can call her and vice versa with an extension number and not pay anything.

You can also be the one o fund the account and so on. In my case, I have a subaccount for my sister (and enabled the UK for for, and I fund the account. I can generate a call detail record for her and she sends me a few dollars every few months to cover her costs.

I also like the ability to set time conditions of when phones can ring or not. I noticed that the time conditions they use are all eastern :-)

Although Voip.Ms has lots of options, I think you should be able to set things up pretty easily and I think that for the small price, you will be happier than with strictly GV.

With the Obi device and a Voip.Ms account you can test connections without an actual phone number ported yet (using echo test and I believe toll free numbers, etc).

I think for the Grandma project you described, this option will be a bit more seamless and useable in this situation.

If she is not expected to make or receive lots of calls, start out with per minute and watch her usage. Then change to a fixed monthly account if you need to (per month with x number of inbound minutes, etc).

[infin8loop]

Thanks for the great advice. I am most likely going to go the voip.ms route. Will this solve the 25 second answering machine problem?

Yes.  With voip.ms you will be able to configure "Dial Time Out in seconds (up to 300 seconds)" meaning "The maximum amount of time a call to your DID can stay in ringing state before we cancel the call (No Answer)."
AND whether or not the call is sent to voice mail if it isn't answered in this time.  This should allow enough time for your local answering machine to pick up.

[Great_Oldies_DJ]

I didn't read all of the posts in this thread closely so excuse me if this was mentioned before. This comment isn't about answering machines.

I just ported my landline from Verizon to Google and I didn't have to go through the process of first going to a cell phone then to Google Voice.

You should check your number and you might find that Google Voice will port it directly.