TWO GV numbers--one Obi: advice needed on transitioning to a different carrier

[JeffreyN]

My wife and I have separate GV numbers and an Obi202. My number gets forwarded to SP1 and rings my phones on Phone1; hers gets forwarded to SP2 and rings her phones on Phone2. Calls from her phones show her GV number as caller ID; calls from my phones show mine.

The deals Obi made with service providers look great--but they provide only one phone number. I need to forward these GV numbers to separate phone numbers to maintain this sort of system, right? I don't want to port the GV numbers to another provider.

What do y'all recommend? I could buy a second Obi device and signup the two separately with the providers; I could ignore the deals Obi has made with providers and go to a different provider or the same ones at regular prices--or is there a better alternative?

I know this is not an unusual situation--but I did search the forums and searched with Google but couldn't find anyone talking about it.

Help!

Thanks. 

[BigJim_McD]

I'm familiar with two of the service providers that can offer three possible solutions.

1)  Two separate Accounts on Vestalink with two different DID numbers {one for each account}.
2)  One account on Vestalink with one DID# and one account on voip.ms with one DID#.
3)  One account on voip.ms with one Main and one sub-account and two DID numbers.

You could substitute any of the VoIP services discussed in this forum for Vestalink. Also, any service that offers "sub-accounts" for voip.ms.  I like voip.ms because the sub-accounts are free, I only pay for the time used for calling at about 1-cent per minute.  Voip.ms includes a number of powerful features at no additional charge.

I use Vestalink with one DID for our home service and voip.ms as a backup for our home phone service. I use voip.ms with two DID numbers, one DID is for the backup service for our home phone, the second DID is for the "sub-account" for my virtual office phone.  I also have additional sub-accounts on voip.ms that I use on a OBi110 and a OBi100 which I use to "play" with various VoIP services and configurations.

I manage my OBi devices on OBiTalk and make refinements using "Expert Mode".  I forward my Google Voice numbers to Vestalink and to voip.ms DID numbers.

[MikeHObi]

I haven't looked closely but I feel the deals through Obi are not that big enough of a deal to make it worth screwing around when you could just get an account with a number of voip providers that could give you two did's and two sip configurations to use with your obi just like you did when using voip.

[JeffreyN]

Following up. I first tried setting up two numbers with two separate accounts with Vestalink. The first number was fine, but the second number simply didn't work at all--it couldn't be reached no matter how I configured the Obi202. So I signed up for a DID with voip.ms. I used the automatic configuration at the Obi site for both lines and, presto, both worked fine.  Turned out to be an easy, inexpensive solution--the 2nd option BigJim described above.

Thanks, BigJim_McD!  I really appreciate your clear explanation and help!

[Marty.ba.calif.usa]

First of all, do you realize that you do not need to do anything unless you want to make a call from your GV number; you can still forward calls from GV to your phones?  And if you're using cell phones, you can make calls using the GV app, at least for now.  I have Android phone, but I believe they have an iphone app too, although I don't know for sure.

Personally, I never really used my GV number very much at all, so I ported my known landline number to Anveo, but not using the Obi special, which would give me a few dollars in free outgoing calls.  I didn't need that, as I already have unlimited cell phone calling.  So, for only $2.80/month, I get unlimited incoming calls with Anveo, plus E911, but complete control over incoming call routing, much, much better than GV.