GV for incoming, and Obi for outgoing?

[Odysseus-forum]

I use my GV to receive enquires regarding a rental property that I have in another city. It rings on my home landline.

My landline is barebones which I got back when bundling a landline was required to get internet and have kept it on for convenience. Cell signal strength is very poor out in the countryside where I live.

I now use Obi and GV to make outgoing calls  showing the same number as on my "For Rent" sign, returning calls from, or making calls to, outside my local calling area, and my wife calls her brother in England. We make probably 15-30 calls a week, some of which run 20-30 mins.

So not a huge amount of minutes, but call quality and reputation of the provider (don't have time to deal with shabby customer service) are very important to me and a reasonable cost to call England. I have now spent a lot of time reading about options for replacing GV on my Obi, but feel none the wiser. Especially so because I really don't understand how all this stuff works and the terminology often goes right over my head.

Cost is less important than the above, but like most, if all else is equal, then the lower cost will be the decider.

Call blocking, IF CONVENIENT to use, would be nice to deal with the scumbags that ignore do-not-call or uses "marketing ploys" to skirt the restrictions. But being a newbie and not understanding this stuff very much, maybe this is a GV issue (i.e., "incoming") not an issue for the service providing my outgoing (is this the "softphone" provider?).

Also, with incoming calls still being routed by GV, how do I make outgoing calls through the replacement service provider show the same number as GV so that folks will recognize the calling number as the same as the one they called regarding the rental property? Is this "spoofing"? This is important as I already have 3 phone #'s (home landline, cell, and GV) and prefer not to use another. I do not want to port my GV # away to accomplish this if it can be avoided.

Any recommendations as to which service provider to use? Thanks in advance.

[AlanB]

Yes "spoofing" does what you want to make it look like your GV number.

You may want to look at Future Nine.  They have good reviews but I have not used them.

If you can handle two companies, maybe consider Callcentric for incoming and CircleNet for outgoing. This will take a little more set up effort though.

The best choice for you if your wife doesn't average much over an hour a month to her brother may be the PhonePower plan with a International included.

If you are forwarding your GV number than you can still use it to block the "scumbags".

[Odysseus-forum]

Alan, thanks for your clear recommendations.

Do I actually need an incoming service provider (e.g., callcentric) since GV will continue to forward to my home landline regardless of May 15th?

Yesterday I felt like I was playing Whack-A-Mole. Following vtsnaab's post,

Curiosity leads to searching; some results to share...

(which I erroneously thought was proposing a way to replace GV without cost) I installed

1-pbxes
2-ipkall
3-callcentric

before I figured out that I had done all that to (inadvertently) make a choice of callcentric (although I have not signed up for any of their plans so far). CC may well be a good provider, but I was already leaning toward Future Nine and your post adds weight to that inclination.

One problem here, and I suspect that it is a widespread problem, is that I really do not understand what the various parts contribute to the whole, and it would be godsend (probably for many readers here) if someone could take a minute and explain what each of pbxes, ipkall, and the service providers individually do in place of GV.

Also, if I had chosen FN to begin with, would I have needed to do steps 1 and 2 above or is that all part of their package?

And if the answer is yes, why is it necessary to do those two steps for callcentric? (probably because CC doesn't provide those elements, whatever they might be, themselves, I suppose.)

Further, if I do not need an incoming (and pending your reply to the above, not sure that I do), should I uninstall pbxes, ipkall, and callcentric.

Your post makes me wonder if I can have two outgoing providers, e.g., one for domestic, and one for international, and if so, how would one set that up? Not that I might necessarily do it, but it would perhaps help me understand what it going on here. [Edit: is this what SP1 and SP2 might accomplish?]

BTW, it seems that my wife uses an international calling service which has the option of calling a metropolitan tel # (which they provide, but which is a long distance call for us) or an 800#. Using the 800# adds 2 cents/min to the L.D. charges, so she has been calling one of their Metropolitan numbers using our Obi to save the surcharge. The upshot of this is that we apparently don't need a service provider for international calling.

Apology for the length, but it just reflects the amount of my confusion on all this.

Thanks for any further light that can be shed on the above questions.

[Odysseus-forum]

Had a look at Local Phone, but ran into this on the US5000 plan:

This service requires you to dial a local landline number, that means you may also pay your phone provider local charges. If you get free landline calls you only pay our cheap international rates.

I have no idea what this means [Edit: I.e., since we are talking Obi and a softphone provider. Why would the service require that a local landline be called?]. Any explanation appreciated

[Odysseus-forum]

Also, I have one more Obi to move to a new service provider TODAY (GV goes away tomorrow), so if anyone could comment on my question about needing to set up pbxes, then ipkall, etc before selecting a provider, or do some providers include those steps in the background?

Is this making sense? Hard for me to ask questions about stuff I don't understand. Thanks.

[Taoman]

so if anyone could comment on my question about needing to set up pbxes, then ipkall, etc before selecting a provider, or do some providers include those steps in the background?

You've already asked this question in another thread where I answered you. This is why it's not a good idea to ask the same question in multiple threads. It gets confusing.

[Odysseus-forum]

Ooopsie! To all, sincere apology. I had sort of lost sight of the fact that this was a second posting. I am just so confused about all of this, that it is all running together in my head. Plus the deadline for GV going away is really stressing me.

So would I be advised to remove pbxes and ipkall? I can certainly attest to the fact that it adds considerably complexity.

Also there are several other questions in this thread which are not duplicated AFAIK, so guidance on these will be much appreciated as time is rapidly running out here on the 14th. Thanks.

[Taoman]

Do I actually need an incoming service provider (e.g., callcentric) since GV will continue to forward to my home landline regardless of May 15th?

No, if you are currently forwarding from GV to your landline and that is working out for you there is no need for you to get an incoming DID (like Callcentric or IPKall). I assume you get unlimited incoming minutes on your landline?

Yes, you could have 2 (or more) service providers for outgoing calls if you wish. One for domestic and one for International calls is certainly an option. As mentioned, I would look at Localphone and/or CircleNet. But it sounds like you may only need one outgoing service provider. You could get yourself a Localphone subscription that would give you 800 outgoing minutes for $1.60/month. Overages would be less than 1 cent per minute and you could spoof your outgoing number with any number you "control." Disregard the line that says "This service requires you to dial a local landline number." That would not apply to you.

Yes, based on what you have posted I would forget about Callcentric, IPKall, and PBXes. In theory, this should be a rather simple transition for you. You would simply delete Google Voice from SP1 and replace it with an outgoing provider like Localphone or CircleNet. Localphone offers monthly subscriptions (as well as PAYG) and there is also a setup wizard for them in the Obi portal so that may be the easiest route for you to take.

[Odysseus-forum]

What a complete and helpful reply! I believe that answers all my remaining questions. Thank you.

Had to stop yesterday due to press of other matters, so will return to it and report back how I get on.