Man am I bummed about XMPP going away. I've had my GV number for about 6 years now. For the first 3 years I had significant problems with delays, echoes, dropped calls, etc. with GV forwarding/calling back to my rural landline. Since getting my OBI 110 nearly 3 years ago I've been spoiled by 100% pristine calling quality using XMPP.
I first heard about Google throwing over XMPP about a month ago, and immediately deleted GV from my OBI to start testing alternatives. I don't have my landline any more, but have accounts with several VOIP providers, all of which provide good call quality by themselves (not involving GV.) I first tried forwarding GV to netsapiens, which would be my least expensive option, because of a good deal through my ISP.
But I started experiencing some of the quality issues above.
I wonder if the fact that my phone number belongs to a rural rate center has anything to do with the problems? Would a number from a large metropolitan area work better? Or is it just the provider? I recently started forwarding to an 800 number I have with Vitelity. Though expensive, so far the results seem to be better. But to be honest, I don't use the telephone that much so testing this way is slow going and because there are so many variables, the results are uncertain.
So I wonder what others' experiences are? I'm not interested in porting my number---I like GV. I just want the best quality I can find using callback/forwarding. In other threads, I've seen many recommendations for CallCentric. Is this because of quality or price? I'm only interested in the former.
Thanks for your opinions...