First, thanks to Taoman for providing this information. I'm going to relate my experience so it may help others.
First - my setup. I have two GV phone numbers, one for home and one for business. The home number is my original TELCO number, we want to keep it. I ported it to GV when I initially setup my OBi several years ago.
Then I setup Callcentric for E911. After CC had issues with DoD attacks and then the Sandy power failures, I turned off E911 as it was unreliable.
In May, based on the upcoming deadline for GV working on the OBi, I reactivated my Callcentric account, and setup two numbers. Each GV number forwarded to a CC number, and I setup CC on my OBi. This gave me unique rings so I could tell if a call was personal or business (neither line gets a lot of activity).
In September, I started having issues with GV. My GV number is forwarded to my cell and to my CC number. My cell would ring, but not the OBi. I thought this was an OBi issue until I played around and determined it was an issue with GV communicating with CC. It got to the point that the house phone would not ring at all, so if someone called I HAD to have my cell setup as a forwarding phone and had to answer the call. Well, that's not reliable enough service for me. After a few missed important calls (luckily GV sends an email when a voicemail is left), I probed some more and sought the help of Steve.
I also had the problem that during a call the audio would become faint and scratchy on my end (we'll see if that is now resolved).
I provided Steve with my call logs, and he contacted his contacts at GV. They contacted their contacts at the companies that complete the calls for them. The result has been that GV says the issue is at CC. CC says the issue is at GV. In other words, "mine's bigger".
On CC's site, there is now an FAQ (with no date as to when posted) that says:
Are there any known issues with Callcentric and GoogleVoice?
At this time we have identified that GoogleVoice has trouble forwarding and placing calls to random Callcentric numbers. The symptoms include:
Lost calls
Dropped calls
Incorrect callerID
Anonymous callerID
We would like to make it clear that there is no difference in quality nor functionality between free numbers and paid numbers offered by Callcentric. Customers experiencing these GoogleVoice issues will note that they can reliably receive incoming calls directly on their Callcentric numbers when GoogleVoice is not involved.
Based on our industry experience and extensive testing/troubleshooting; we believe this issue may be due to the outgoing carrier being used by GoogleVoice potentially using poorer quality routes. We are currently working with GoogleVoice on this issue to try to attain additional information and also to see what changes can be made on their end (GoogleVoice) to resolve the problem satisfactorily.
Unfortunately, as it has been determined that the above mentioned concerns are related to the way that a third-party provider (GoogleVoice) provides service and delivers calls; we will not investigate your specific issue if it relates to any of the symptoms above.
With that said, we are committed to providing the best service experience possible for our customers and with this in mind we will continue working with GoogleVoice regarding these concerns. Further updates and information will be provided as soon as they are available. In the interim, you may contact Google to inform them of this issue and show that it affects a wider range of their subscribers.
I posted a trouble ticket to CC giving them the specific info Steve had given me. Their response was
We are currently investigating the issue further. Once we have more information, we will update this ticket. [/color]
In the meantime, I need reliable phone service. I need the phone to ring when someone calls. Taoman suggested IPcomms, a company I had never heard of (not that this means anything, I'm not a VoIP expert - I got an OBi to cut my phone bill to near nothing with GV).
My initial experience with them has been very disappointing. Their website was unreachable, I found certain pages accessible but not others. They made a change, and most, but not all of the pages were reachable. I found multiple typos on the site (a yellow flag to me). I filled out a form (they push you to like them on Facebook but I found the form without doing that), and then they called to ask a few questions and then said I would receive a setup email. That was at 5:13PM last night. I never got the email, sent a trouble ticket, got response to check my spam folder, went back and forth during the evening, was asked to give an alternate email address. This morning I discovered that after I went to bed I received an email, to the original email address at 10:50 PM. Since I only got 1 email (and none to the alternate email address), it's not due to delays in their system it's due to something not working until they fixed it.
During the evening I also setup iNum numbers as Taoman suggested on Callcentric's site. I was able to setup two, thinking I might be able to forward both GV numbers if I have to. Unfortunately, as was noted by Taoman, IPComms only gives you one free DID. So yes, I can handle all my calls by forwarding both GV numbers to IPComms, but I'll lose any distinct ring if I do that. Since I get infrequent calls, and since my cell is setup as forwarding (and doesn't use minutes), this is fine for now.
This morning I logged into IPComms and discovered that you cannot change your initial password (which was in the email) online, so I asked how to change it - don't want it sitting in email folders anywhere. I followed Taoman's instructions, but it took several tries to get IPComms system to show the info accurately, and I have no idea why. Their website as noted as numerous typos, no "Call Treatments" that I can see (which would allow me to take my business calls and send them to the second iNum number I setup), no way to change a password, etc.
Once setup I tested things. If I don't forward to IPComms, my house phone takes about 15 seconds to ring (vs. 6 for my cell to ring). That means that in 10 seconds or less GV is going to ask the caller to leave a Voicemail message). I then forwarded my GV number to IPComms and retried the call. My house phone rang instantly. My OBi is still setup for CC and I do not have to put GV on it and use the portal or update my firmware (and take the risk of possibly bricking the OBi).
So, as of now, I have "fixed" the problem. I've also proved that GV can forward immediately to IPComms (a California number), which unscientifically proves to me that the issue MAY be with CC.
If this keeps working then I have no reason to change anything. IPComms is free for incoming calls, CC is free for incoming calls, and GV is free. If GV and CC stop the "mine's bigger" contest and actually fix things, then I can remove IPComms from the loop if I want.
I also noted that none of the IPComms account pages are secure. Not one of them. Big concern.
I hope things keep working, my initial experience with IPComms screams "Danger Will Robinson, Danger". We'll see. As I said I hope to help others by posting this.