I procrastinated as long as I dared with migrating from GV to a different service. With the 15th around the corner though I wanted to make sure to give myself a bit of time in case of problems. I picked PhonePower based primarily on price and I found them quick to answer questions some weeks ago when I was looking and wanted to verify some GV expectations. I migrated this morning and found the process pretty painless. I thought I would share steps below in case others have questions or problems.
First, I did not transfer my GV number to them but rather used the approach to forward my GV number. When I checked a few weeks ago PhonePower had a pretty hefty charge for migrating a phone number and I didn't think it worth it. As a note, it appears Anveo might be doing this for free, but their plans are also higher cost so take all this into account as you make your decision. Last note here is that PhonePower does not transcribe VM messages. Granted, Google's transcription was pretty awful but it was nice to get the gist of a call (most of the time). I had Vonage prior to GV and do miss their substantially better transcription. That said and this is a convenience item for me and not critical as of course you can listen to VM via the attached audio in email.
1/ Click on the Approved Service Providers'" link from the OBITalk webpage
2/ click on "Learn More" from the Phone Power marketing block
3/ Click on your Device and Service Provider Slot also ensuring the appropriate phone slots are checked
4/ Click on "Sign-Up at
PhonePower.com"
5/ Choose your plan and click "Order Now"
6/ They will lead you through a 5-step process which is very straight forward. Note you will select a NEW phone number of which you will later forward your GV number to. They will also allow you to "spoof" your number so that outbound calls you make will show up with your GV number versus the new one they will provide you.
7/After you are sign-up and have the new phone number, head back to the ObiTalk page
8/ On the page where you initially clicked "Learn More" in Step 2 look further down for the heading "OBiTalk Compatible Service Providers" and click on the "Next" button.
9/ Choose "PhonePower" from the "Configure Service Provider Accounts" list
10/ The questions here are pretty self-explanatory. Do make sure to click on "Voicemail Notification" if you want the stuffer tone that will cause your home phone to flash the message light. You will need to enter your PhonePower VOIP Number NOT your GV number. This is the number PhonePower gave you when you registered above. You will also need to enter your PhonePower username and password (Not OBI username/password)
11/ From back on the dashboard expect it to take some minutes before status moves to "Registered" next to your new SP1 OBI PhonePower device.
12/ Now head over to GoogleVoice and click on the settings gear icon on the left of the screen within your GV account
13/ The first tab labeled "Phones" will have a link to "Add Another Phone". Fill in the PhonePower phone number. With this saved make sure that there is a check box next to the PhonePower number which Google will forward calls to.
14/ Google will need to verify this number. They will provide you with a code and ask you to press a button which will then have them ring your PhonePower number. Your phone should ring and you will then enter the code Google gives you. With this verified (which is instant) all calls to your GV number will now go to your new PhonePower number.
15/ At this point you should verify that the phone and numbers are working. Call your old GV number and it should ring your new home phone. Call from the home phone to say your cell and it should show your GV number not your new PhonePower number. In other words everything should work as it did prior.
16/ Next step is to configure your VM. You will be using PhonePower's system and by default it has a robo message which speaks the new phone number they gave you to callers. You don't want this of course. Your first instinct from the PhonePower site will be to configure VM from the VoiceMail tab. Actually what you want is to pick up your phone and dial *21 and enter 1111 as your pin (which they will then have you change). From there setup your greeting as you want.
17/ Now head to the VoiceMail setup area where you can enter email addresses you want VM to send the audio attachment to.
18/ The last key item which is not apparent is the "Failsafe" number. This is the number that will be called if your VOIP equipment has an issue or you lose power, etc. You can find this on the "My Account" page next to the orange colored "Phone Number". Click the button below this to change the number to a different one (likely a cell phone) so that you are covered in case of VOIP issues.
Hope this helps.
Additional Update: I have found that many times GV pickes up my VM before PP does. At first blush this doesn't appear to be a big issue since it forwards it to email and offers the audio recording. Additionally it does rudimentary transcription where PP does not. However, what is lost is the stutter tone that causes the message light on your home phone to blink. So be aware that you may lose this for some or all calls. Also be aware that this does happen so that you don't remove your contact details from the Google Voice account and thus miss your VM's! After searching there is no way to disable GV VM as it will pick up after 25 seconds. So if 25 seconds comes before PP starts its VM, your VM will be picked up by GV. I found no setting in GV to lengthen that time nor PP to shorten its time.
Update #2: Another user on this forum let me know that you can control the time it takes for PP to pick up VM. You do this via the "Call Forwarding" feature on the PP site (NOT GV). It seems to default to 24 seconds but I would presume that there is delay between when GV gets the call and forwards it to PP. So this value will have to be less. It will take some experimentation to see how low you need to set this value and whether that is too low for you to pick up the call prior if desired.
