Quote from: User2020 on May 21, 2013, 07:39:25 PM
I wish an official spokesperson for Obihai would chime in about this. People are already posting on the web that this device won't work with GV in the future. If this isn't the case, Obihai should shut down the rumor now.
What you should first wish is that Google would be more forthcoming about their future plans, and about whether/how it will be possible to interconnect with Google Voice in the future. I doubt that the Obihai people have any "inside track" on information from Google, and this is coming out of left field for them as much as for the rest of us.
There are a few things to keep in mind:
Right now the Obihai devices and XMPP continue to work. Sure, Google Hangouts aren't using XMPP anymore, but if you have created a separate Gmail account for use with Google Voice and your Obihai, and you don't enable Hangouts on that account, there is no evidence that Google will suddenly pull the plug on XMPP without warning. If they were to do that, I think there would be an immediate backlash, because this not only would affect Obihai users, but also users of Asterisk, FreeSwitch, Yate, and other PBX software that connects to Google Voice, not to mention several Google Voice apps, and all the instant messaging software that depends on Google's XMPP. I would expect, or at least hope, that before Google shuts down XMPP completely they would feel some obligation to give advance notice, and hopefully document alternate ways to connect to their services. Point is, I think that much of the shouting of doom and gloom may be a bit premature.
Second, until and unless Google makes some information available about alternative ways to connect to Google Voice, or they announce that XMPP will be shut down on some drop-dead date, it would be premature for Obihai to speculate on alternative ways to connect to Google Voice. Right now they most likely don't know any more than any of us. In a week or a month, we might have considerably more information that would enable better decisions.
Finally, keep in mind that Google Voice calls can always be forwarded to a regular telephone number in a pinch. So even if Google makes the huge mistake (from a PR standpoint) of completely shutting down XMPP with no advance notice, it's not like people who call your Google Voice number will need to go into a black hole. You can route the calls to your cell phone, a landline, or any other VoiP provider. You don't need to port your Google Voice number to some other provider, and in fact I don't see any good reason to do so, unless maybe you have just plain lost all trust in Google (if they do suddenly shut off XMPP with no advance warning, then I could understand that feeling).
By the way, when people talk about older methods that used to work, I recall that some of them relied on a program called PyGoogleVoice (not sure if that relied on XMPP or not - the documentation is at
http://sphinxdoc.github.io/pygooglevoice/ ) and (more importantly) the use of Gizmo5. The latter would convert Google Voice calls to SIP format, but Google bought it and then shut it down. Since Gizmo5 was a necessary ingredient in some of those older "recipes", I don't think you can simply go back to those older methods. That doesn't mean there won't be any alternatives available, but we may not know what they are yet.