4 rings not enough time for in-phone voicemail anymore
oecra:
Quote from: et_phone_home on February 23, 2014, 05:42:53 pm
I'm currently using Obihai with Obivoice. I'm also forwarding my GV number to OV.
Before, when I was using GV directly with Obihai, the 4-ring setting before the phone voicemail kicked in worked fine. Now that I'm forwarding my GV to OV, the 25 second limit is making it so that the calls are going directly to GV voicemail instead of being recorded on the in-phone voicemail. Why is this happening? Is it because the calls are being routed to OV and it's taking longer than usual for the phone to ring? Anyway around this apart for changing the voicemail setting on the phone?
I was having the same issue as you and the only solution Obivoice could give me was to port my number or change my answering machine to pick up after 2 rings. In another post, someone mentioned that classifying your forwarding # in GV settings as "mobile" will give you the option to deactivate GV voicemail all together. This is what I did and is it's now behaving just how it was when I was using GV+obi combo. My phone rings 4 times before the answering machine picks up (without changing ring pattern).
giqcass:
Quote from: oecra on February 25, 2014, 10:43:58 am
In another post, someone mentioned that classifying your forwarding # in GV settings as "mobile" will give you the option to deactivate GV voicemail all together.
You can't deactivate GV Voicemail for calls that were placed directly to your GV number. That "might" buy you a half a second because Google knows it takes a little longer to connect to a cell phone. That's why it might have helped your situation but GV Voicemail is still active!
@SteveInWA You are a GV Top contributor. Would you chime in on this one?
oecra:
Quote from: giqcass on February 25, 2014, 05:28:10 pm
Quote from: oecra on February 25, 2014, 10:43:58 am
In another post, someone mentioned that classifying your forwarding # in GV settings as "mobile" will give you the option to deactivate GV voicemail all together.
You can't deactivate GV Voicemail for calls that were placed directly to your GV number. That "might" buy you a half a second because Google knows it takes a little longer to connect to a cell phone. That's why it might have helped your situation but GV Voicemail is still active!
@SteveInWA You are a GV Top contributor. Would you chime in on this one?
Hmm..well when I switched the classification of my forwarding # from "home" to "mobile", I am given 3 options: Receive text messages on this phone, Notify me of new voicemails via text, and Activate Google voicemail on this phone (none of which I selected). I turned off my answering machine completely and the line keeps ringing when I call my GV #. I let it ring at least 10 times, which is way over the 25 seconds in which GV should have picked up. Either way, if I am incorrect about being able to disable GV voicemail, I am happy with how it is currently behaving.
giqcass:
Quote from: oecra on February 25, 2014, 06:40:32 pm
Hmm..well when I switched the classification of my forwarding # from "home" to "mobile", I am given 3 options: Receive text messages on this phone, Notify me of new voicemails via text, and Activate Google voicemail on this phone (none of which I selected). I turned off my answering machine completely and the line keeps ringing when I call my GV #. I let it ring at least 10 times, which is way over the 25 seconds in which GV should have picked up. Either way, if I am incorrect about being able to disable GV voicemail, I am happy with how it is currently behaving.
I just tried this and Google Voice picked up as I expected. I am waiting for someone to say "April fools".
SteveInWA:
Quote from: giqcass on February 25, 2014, 05:28:10 pm
Quote from: oecra on February 25, 2014, 10:43:58 am
In another post, someone mentioned that classifying your forwarding # in GV settings as "mobile" will give you the option to deactivate GV voicemail all together.
You can't deactivate GV Voicemail for calls that were placed directly to your GV number. That "might" buy you a half a second because Google knows it takes a little longer to connect to a cell phone. That's why it might have helped your situation but GV Voicemail is still active!
@SteveInWA You are a GV Top contributor. Would you chime in on this one?
Warning: very long post ahead!
Yes, many aspects of GV are confusing. If they weren't, I wouldn't be wasting enjoying so much time on the GV forum. ::)
The confusion here is over the concept of forwarding one's GV number to a forwarding (target) phone, vs. forwarding the target phone's unanswered/busy calls back to GV, using the target phone's carrier's Conditional Call Forwarding feature. (See, even that sentence is mind-blowingly confusing!)
When you click the "Enable voicemail" link on the Phones tab, next to your forwarding target phone, you are actually doing absolutely nothing in the GV system. All it does is display the instructions for you to enter the command string on your target phone, to enable CCF of calls from your phone's network back to your GV number. CCF is a feature that lives on the forwarding phone's telco network, not GV. You can click that "Enable" or "Disable" link all day, and all it does is toggle the instructions.
There is no setting on Google Voice to disable Google Voice's voicemail. The whole point of being a Google Voice user is to make use of its features, above all, its voicemail. Many OBi customers missed this distinction, being lulled into a state of bliss by the hype about "free phone service". GV is a call forwarding and message management system, not just a barebones free phone service.
When you add a phone number to your GV list of forwarding phones, GV will ring phones on the list, according to either the default settings on the Phones tab, or (overridden by) the settings on the Groups and Circles tab, or (again, overridden by) the settings for an individual contact.
If that called party's phone doesn't answer within 25 seconds (yes, it's a fixed time interval, not a number of rings), and you have not enabled CCF, then GV will give up and take the call back to its VM. If the target phone "wins the race" and answers before 25 seconds, it takes the message.
If the called party's phone is busy, out of service, or otherwise can't answer, and you have not enabled CCF, then your target phone's VM or answering machine takes the message.
If the any of the above conditions apply, and you have enabled CCF, then the two systems (GV and your target phone's carrier) will cooperate to route busy or unanswered calls back to GV. This is the preferred option, but many mobile and landline phone plans don't support CCF.
A common workaround to force unanswered/busy calls back to GV VM is to enable GV's "Call screening" feature. This requires whoever or whatever answers to press "1" to accept the call. Since your target phone's answering machine or VM isn't human, and can't do that, GV will give up and take the message. There is no trick to make the opposite happen, other than to shorten that phone's ring-to-answer interval if possible.
There is an obscure setting to have GV ring all your other forwarding phones before taking a message if the target phone in question doesn't answer, to further confuse things.
Note that the 25 second interval isn't constant nor precise. The delay incurred while the call is being completed to a (typically mobile phone) carrier's network can shorten the actual ring duration at the target phone. An infamous example of this is with Sprint integration. In this scenario, if you call my integrated Sprint number, the call actually first gets detoured to GV's network, then fans out to all forwarding phones, including the Sprint phone. Then, depending on Sprint's wireless network variables, it can take so long to start ringing my mobile phone that the call gives up and goes to VM before I can answer it.
TL;DR:
No, you can't disable GV VM, and you can't change the ring period on GV.
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