Does anyone have an explanation on not supporting Google Voice Stutter Tone/MWI?

[ChrisJacob]

I toyed with my gear when I purchased it a year ago. Finally got around to kicking out Vonage and porting my number (with a hop at TMobile) to GV. I have been very pleased with how easy everything went, and how reliable (knock on wood) everything seems to be. Really I only have two issues...

1. No longer supporting the MWI stutter tone when using GV. Does anyone have an official word, or even a good educated guess as to why this was removed. I honestly tried searching, but this "SMF V 1.1" forum system is terrible for searching.

2. (This one totally Google related) When I get a VM on GV, I want to send it to two people (what google would call a group in gmail) The problem is, I can only select my email address or one of the aliases. (I'm using google apps) I can't enter the group name. Does anyone have a work around for this?

Thanks in advance!

-chris

[SteveInWA]

Hi Chris:

1:  I don't have an "official" answer, but MWI isn't something that Google supported nor designed into Chat, so Obihai had to hack something.  It never worked that well, stopped working periodically, and it's possible that the 2014 authentication update was the final nail in the coffin.

2:  One way to handle this is to have GV send the notification to a Gmail address, and then set up a forwarding rule to fan it out to your desired group.

[ceg3]

1:  I don't have an "official" answer, but MWI isn't something that Google supported nor designed into Chat, so Obihai had to hack something.  It never worked that well, stopped working periodically, and it's possible that the 2014 authentication update was the final nail in the coffin.

Do you think there is any at all likelihood we'll ever get MWI back or my dream, CNAM?

[SteveInWA]

I have no crystal ball as to the future for MWI; the situation might change if or when Obihai migrates its device firmware from XMPP to WebRTC, but again, I have no idea of the timetable for that.

RE:  CNAM, forget it; not going to happen.  CNAM is a mess, as an unfortunate but understandable side effect of the deregulation of the telephone carriers, and the proliferation of mobile phones and VoIP DIDs.

In ye olden tymes, pre-divestiture of the Bell System, the various local exchange carriers (mostly Baby Bells, with some independents like General Telephone) had control of their own customers' account information.  It was easy for them to build CNAM data bases and "dip" into them to look up names.  They shared those data bases with each other.  Now, there are many, many providers out there, and the data bases are maintained by not just the ILECs, but by third-party data brokers.  Somebody has to pay for that DB maintenance and infrastructure, and it's the telephone service providers who do the feeds of their subscribers, and the lookup dips.

Since GV is a (mostly) free service, Google doesn't pay the providers to be able to perform lookups, and it doesn't provide its users' names to the DBs, either.

[zorlac]

Thanks for taking the time to post all this background info Steve, I appreciate you sharing your knowledge.
Mark

[SteveInWA]

Thanks for the feedback, Mark!

[BigJim_McD]

I have no crystal ball as to the future for MWI; the situation might change if or when Obihai migrates its device firmware from XMPP to WebRTC, but again, I have no idea of the timetable for that.

RE:  CNAM, forget it; not going to happen.  CNAM is a mess, as an unfortunate but understandable side effect of the deregulation of the telephone carriers, and the proliferation of mobile phones and VoIP DIDs.

In ye olden tymes, pre-divestiture of the Bell System, the various local exchange carriers (mostly Baby Bells, with some independents like General Telephone) had control of their own customers' account information.  It was easy for them to build CNAM data bases and "dip" into them to look up names.  They shared those data bases with each other.  Now, there are many, many providers out there, and the data bases are maintained by not just the ILECs, but by third-party data brokers.  Somebody has to pay for that DB maintenance and infrastructure, and it's the telephone service providers who do the feeds of their subscribers, and the lookup dips.

Since GV is a (mostly) free service, Google doesn't pay the providers to be able to perform lookups, and it doesn't provide its users' names to the DBs, either.

SteveInWA,

I would like to add my "Thanks" to Zorlac's for your continued support and explanations of why "Google Voice Stutter Tone/MWI" no longer works.  Also, I would like to add an additional "Thanks" for your explanation of the "CNAM mess" and why Google doesn't and will not support CNAM.  I would like to say that your explanation was the best and clearest explanation that I have ever read on the issues of CNAM.

We do expect so MUCH from Google's FREE service.

[Ryan_Tilton]

If MWI is very important to you and there turns out to be no updates to fix this or work arounds.  You can use the voicemail service I have created to get your MWI working again.  It offers the same features as Google voice such as transcription and email/sms alerts. 

[ceg3]

Tell us more.  Is it a separate service from your Vestalink service, something that would be in addition to our Google Voice service?

[Koby]

For anyone who really misses this feature and who does not want to subscribe to a pay service to get it back, see my post (Reply #19) in the other thread on this subject.

[BearJerCares]

This is a big deal to me that MWI is no longer working properly on Google Voice. I had changed to PhonePower VOIP  service almost one year ago because of the big scare that GV would no longer work with the OBI. I paid $60 for the entire year and that is coming up again in just a couple weeks. Since I do not wish to pay another $60 for no reason, I have re-configured my GV on my Obi100 and I have ordered a free phone number from CallCentric just for the purpose of 911 service and Caller ID with name and number (which does not work perfectly, but it does provide the name and number over half the time and it costs $1.50 per month for that 911/service).

Now my dilemma is just the opposite. I cannot get my MWI red light on my cordless phone system to quite blinking. There are no messages waiting and no matter what I do, clearing the MWI in my cordless phone menu - it just comes right back. I can live without the MWI by sending the voicemails directly to my GMail account, but it is driving me crazy not to be able to get rid of the MWI blinking light. I guess I might have to try deleting my GV and putting it back up again with hopes it will take care of the problem. Anyone experience this?
Jerry in Michigan

[SteveInWA]

If you are forwarding your GV calls to a Callcentric phone number, and you've configured your OBi to use that number for your inbound calls, instead of directly from GV via Chat, then that message waiting indicator is controlled by Callcentric's VM server.

Press *123 on your phone to get into Callcentric's VM system, and make sure that you don't, in fact, have an actual message waiting.

Oh, and just to restate this discussion and to be clear:  this feature is simply not provided any more with GV on OBi.  Most people can do without it, by having GV send a SMS to their mobile phone when a voicemail message comes in.  If you don't have unlimited text messaging, one really cheap solution is to get a Lycamobile SIM and number, stick it in any old GSM phone, and add it as a forwarding phone on your GV account.  When you get a VM message, GV will send a text to the Lyca number.  Inbound texts are free on Lyca, and as long as you make a two cent phone call every month, your balance doesn't expire.

If you really, really need this particular feature on your telephone handset or base, then you'll have to use some other telephone service provider instead of GV... like Phonepower or Callcentric or voip.ms for example.

[zorlac]

I cannot get my MWI red light on my cordless phone system to quite blinking. There are no messages waiting and no matter what I do, clearing the MWI in my cordless phone menu - it just comes right back.

Have you changed any settings in the expert mode? I was playing with MWI settings when it stopped working and vaguely remember something like that. I'd do a ***8 reset and set-up from scratch via the obi web portal.