Best Value / Reliability for E911 Service to Use With 'New' Google Voice w/ OBi
scoleman.69@gmail.com:
Quote from: SteveInWA on January 10, 2015, 05:08:27 pm
So...
You started the thread asking about E-911, and now you've decided that it's unnecessary. That's fine. Just put a sticker on the phone to advise any visitor or other person who doesn't know, that the phone cannot make E-911 calls. You don't want anyone wasting time trying to call 911 if it won't work.
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll be sure to take that to heart and see that it's done wherever 911 is not in service.
Quote
Google Voice questions/answers:
[ snip lots of good info, can be found in above post ]
Thanks for everyone's help and patience,
Steve
Taoman:
Quote from: zorlac on January 10, 2015, 12:25:09 pm
All obi's are GV compatible............
Not entirely accurate. The 5xx series of OBi products are not "GV compatible."
Rick:
A couple of things here, and I speak from experience with TWO in different facilities.
1) If you're not going to get 911 service, then setup the OBi to dial the phone number of the 911 dispatch desk. Given she has a transmitter, tell her to FIRST hit the button. She of course should attempt to exit during a fire emergency if she can without trying to call 911 or hit the button unless she needs assistance.
2) Be prepared to deal with issues like the OBi needing to reboot, her being uncertain as to a message that she heard when making a call making it impossible for you to diagnose, GV being down, etc. For one elderly relative who WAS comfortable using his cellphone I bought a XLink BT Gateway (you can also get the BTTN). This connects their cell to a standard house phone, enabling all calls to be made on the cell - which has unlimited calling. They pickup the house phone and get a dial tone and dial, and the cell makes the call. I ported their home number to the cell and so all calls they would have received go to the cell which rings the house phone. And, I disabled the cell voicemail so all messages go on their answering machine like they always did. Even with this simple solution I have to go there every 3 - 4 months to fix whatever they did - they don't remember what they did but now only the cell works. I tried hiding the cell but their cell requires you to clear the display when a call is missed (some do, some don't), so they need to do that. They do not have internet service, the wifi in the building could not support an OBi, and if I had to pay for internet that would be another expense and might as well pay for a landline. This is a $40 or $50 one-time expense and you're done.
I also have an elderly mother, who in her prime couldn't run a VCR without assistance ("you have to put a tape in?"), and I would NEVER consider giving any of them an OBi unless they had a landline also which defaulted if the OBi wasn't functioning properly.
drgeoff:
Quote from: Taoman on January 11, 2015, 08:00:27 am
Quote from: zorlac on January 10, 2015, 12:25:09 pm
All obi's are GV compatible............
Not entirely accurate. The 5xx series of OBi products are not "GV compatible."
Nor the 3xx one(s).
scoleman.69@gmail.com:
Quote from: Rick on January 12, 2015, 05:29:32 am
A couple of things here, and I speak from experience with TWO in different facilities.
1) If you're not going to get 911 service, then setup the OBi to dial the phone number of the 911 dispatch desk. Given she has a transmitter, tell her to FIRST hit the button. She of course should attempt to exit during a fire emergency if she can without trying to call 911 or hit the button unless she needs assistance.
2) Be prepared to deal with issues like the OBi needing to reboot, her being uncertain as to a message that she heard when making a call making it impossible for you to diagnose, GV being down, etc.
[ snip details of typical non-techie elder's issues with techie thingies... ';) ]
Thanks for the input.
I've just 're-discovered' that OBi STILL has a deal with Phone Power for $35 and $60 / yr. depending on service level, which one would never know cause ya can't find it on PP's site, at least in a straightforward manner, and earlier I'd not ran up on it on OBi's site where it should have been, or at least where I thought it would have been.
So, I could set her up with PP via an OBi box which has integral 911 service, BUT there's still the occasional issues with either PP's system doing something stupid, such as 'The service provider has rejected the number dialed. Reason 4xx.' [ most likely ], or the OBi needs some attention [ less likely ]. In addition she doesn't have a cell nor other phone to be the 'fail safe' default in case of the Net being down.
Since she makes very few outgoing LD calls and only short ones, and when she calls me, we hang up and I call her back to keep her charges low. Her bill runs about $30 / mo. which includes her 'email client' since she used to get her INet via DSL from them and we'd lose that so she'd have to change to another email program and after they made a few 'upgrades / changes' to their email program she still b*tches about having to re-learn how to use it, so that right there's a definite con to dropping her present phone service... ';)
Looking more and more like $30 +/- / mo. ain't that beeg a deal.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page