Google adding official calling on there mobile version of Hangouts:
SteveInWA:
Quote from: Crow550 on November 03, 2013, 08:02:52 pm
I'm sure Google knows that people use G-Voice as a landline replacement and has something up there sleeves. They have until May to announce something as they know people will be raging over this feature going away....
Google has no interest (and nothing to gain as a business) in being a land line VoIP provider. That market is rapidly declining. Approximately 90% of US households now have a mobile phone, and the percentage of people relying solely on POTS landlines is declining to around 10%. The local broadband companies have the lion's share of the VoIP home phone business, thanks to aggressive sales tactics to bundle phone with TV and internet service. "Pure play" VoIP providers like Vonage will be a declining niche market. The hundreds of other SIP-based VoIP providers (e.g. Anveo, Callcentric, voip.ms, callwithus....) will continue to sell to their niche markets of techie users and small-to-midsize businesses.
Google's primary business focus now, with regard to communications, is to continue to grow the Google+ user base, and offer services within that ecosystem, especially on mobile devices. The recent (and future-planned) enhancements to Hangouts are the stated direction for text, audio and video chatting.
Bottom line: work through your "stages of grief" (the denial phase, the anger phase, the acceptance phase...), take the 6 months to select your alternative tools, and you'll be ready for the transition in May.
Crow550:
If they have voip calling with Hangouts then why not offer it through ATA devices? What's the big loss?
Hell I don't mind using G-Voice through another VOIP provider as long as they add the ability of your G-Voice number being displayed on the caller id when you call out! This also applies to non-smart phones too.
I know someone who ported there Landline to G-Voice and uses it with an Obi and has calls forward on her non-smart prepaid phone.
The pain in the butt part is when she calls out on her Cell it displays the Cell number and not not her G-Voice number.
Which now she will need to shop around for another VOIP service at Home....
So as cool as G-Voice is it has some things it needs to fix badly.
A lot of people don't know that Skype offers a similar feature that works with a limited set of VOIP devices too.
carl:
Quote from: gderf on November 04, 2013, 02:18:58 pm
I disagree with this statement :)
I used the OBiTALK interface to configure my OBi200 for Google Voice. Google Voice was but one choice in a list of sixteen VoIP providers. Setting up my second SP with CallWithUs was equally trivial when I selected it from the same list. As was it to configure my third SP for the free DID I got from CallCentric.
IF you stick to the list of 15 SIP providers and IF you do not have to make any changes like carrier mandated re routing or applying star codes to get certain features work then yes, you are fine- most of the time. You will be stuck with the basic configuration with no possibility to adapt to for example, other countries or your personal needs. And you will miss out on all the truly awesome features and possibilities Obi has.
gderf:
Quote from: carl on November 04, 2013, 07:51:21 pm
IF you stick to the list of 15 SIP providers and IF you do not have to make any changes like carrier mandated re routing or applying star codes to get certain features work then yes, you are fine- most of the time. You will be stuck with the basic configuration with no possibility to adapt to for example, other countries or your personal needs. And you will miss out on all the truly awesome features and possibilities Obi has.
You seem to want to have it both ways without having to lift the hood and get your hands dirty.
giqcass:
Incoming calls through Google Voice to the Obi will still work fine if you use another provider like Callcentric as a "Middle man". You can use the following setup. http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=3640.msg24230#msg24230
For legal reasons Google Voice MUST remain a "Phone Management Service" and NOT any of the phone service provider types defined by the FCC. If they meet the definition of a Land-line telephone service, a cell phone telephone service, or a VOIP telephone service they will be forced to charge monthly fees.
Phone service providers of certain types as defined by the FCC must provide some form of 911 in the US. Similar laws exist in other countries as well. That service can be very expensive and very complicated to put together. In addition there are a lot of other regulations they would be forced to comply with. All of these things collectively raise costs. Ooma is a good example of this. They were a free service until the 911 laws were put in place for VOIP providers.
Google is sending letters to developers of Android applications that make direct connections rather then initiating a connection using the phones incoming phone number like the official app does. Google is trying to protect itself from litigation by not allowing phones (and probably ATA's) to use it's service to bypass the phone service providers.
Obi probably got one of the letters from Google saying they misused the service because of the way they connect to it. Obi may have decided not to pursue direct calling through Google Voice for that reason. If Obi rewrote the code so that calls were being terminated to a DID number instead of directly to the Obi device that could put them in compliance with Google's TOS.
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