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General Support => On-Topic: Obihai and OBi Products => Topic started by: Ohmytvc15 on February 18, 2012, 06:31:52 PM

Title: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: Ohmytvc15 on February 18, 2012, 06:31:52 PM
Let me know if I have this right.

My situation. I use my cell phone 90% at home and 10% away. I want to have a VOIP phone to use at home and a cheap pay as you go cell phone for when I'm away to save money. Tired of high cell phone charges.

So, I buy a cordless phone, hook it up to the OBI 100. Get a google voice number. Have it forward calls to google chat which will ring my Obi-cordless phone. Also have it forward calls to my cell phone. When someone calls my google voice number it will ring both my cordless phone and my cell phone? When I'm at home i can just answer my cordless phone which will save me cell phone minutes (I could just turn off my cell phone at home). If I am away from home I can just answer my cell phone. If i dont answer either it will send to voice mail and send me an email. Is this all correct? And of course I will have to set it up in the portal to use google voice for outgoing calls.

I've always been a little confused about google voice so I just want to make sure I have all of this right before I buy.

Thanks :)
Title: Re: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: Rick on February 18, 2012, 06:51:08 PM
Correct.
Title: Re: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: RonR on February 18, 2012, 06:59:31 PM
Quote from: Ohmytvc15 on February 18, 2012, 06:31:52 PM
When I'm at home i can just answer my cordless phone which will save me cell phone minutes (I could just turn off my cell phone at home).

If you turn your cell phone off, don't calls immediately go to voicemail?  If so, Google Voice will consider the call answered and stop ringing the OBi.
Title: Re: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: Ohmytvc15 on February 18, 2012, 07:49:08 PM
Quote from: RonR on February 18, 2012, 06:59:31 PM
Quote from: Ohmytvc15 on February 18, 2012, 06:31:52 PM
When I'm at home i can just answer my cordless phone which will save me cell phone minutes (I could just turn off my cell phone at home).

If you turn your cell phone off, don't calls immediately go to voicemail?  If so, Google Voice will consider the call answered and stop ringing the OBi.


look here http://www.obihai.com/tutorial11.html I think you can change the option under forwarding options to ring your other phones before going to voice mail. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Title: Re: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: RonR on February 18, 2012, 07:59:47 PM
Quote from: Ohmytvc15 on February 18, 2012, 07:49:08 PM
look here http://www.obihai.com/tutorial11.html I think you can change the option under forwarding options to ring your other phones before going to voice mail. Correct me if I'm wrong.

That would be applicable if you have Google Voice replace the voicemail service for your cell phone instead of using your normal cell phone service voicemail.
Title: Re: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: Ohmytvc15 on February 18, 2012, 08:38:04 PM
Quote from: RonR on February 18, 2012, 07:59:47 PM
Quote from: Ohmytvc15 on February 18, 2012, 07:49:08 PM
look here http://www.obihai.com/tutorial11.html I think you can change the option under forwarding options to ring your other phones before going to voice mail. Correct me if I'm wrong.

That would be applicable if you have Google Voice replace the voicemail service for your cell phone instead of using your normal cell phone service voicemail.


Yeah you see that's where I Start getting a little confused. So say that is my cell phone and I have that box checked, then when someone calls my cell phone directly and I don't answer, then Google's voice mail takes over. Am I able to check Google voice mail from my cell phone? It is a bit confusing.

I suppose I could just always leave my cell phone on all the time.
Title: Re: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: Ohmytvc15 on February 18, 2012, 08:41:13 PM
I think its better not to activate the forwarding.
Title: Re: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: RonR on February 18, 2012, 08:51:57 PM
Quote from: Ohmytvc15 on February 18, 2012, 08:38:04 PM
So say that is my cell phone and I have that box checked, then when someone calls my cell phone directly and I don't answer, then Google's voice mail takes over. Am I able to check Google voice mail from my cell phone?

In order for Google Voice to be able to ring other phones before going to voicemail when someone calls your cell phone and you don't answer it, you have to allow Google Voice voicemail to become your cell phone voicemail service instead of letting your cell phone company provide the voicemail service as they do now.  That's the only way Google Voice would have any way of knowing that your cell phone is being called and you're not answering it.  To have Google Voice take over the voicemail service for your cell phone, you have to click the link shown in the screen capture below.

Quote from: Ohmytvc15 on February 18, 2012, 08:38:04 PM
I suppose I could just always leave my cell phone on all the time.

That's correct.
Title: Re: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: Ohmytvc15 on February 18, 2012, 09:02:02 PM
Gotcha. Thanks for your help.
Title: Re: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: jimates on February 18, 2012, 10:27:50 PM
I have 2 tracfone phones. One on At&t and one on Verizon. Neither one can be set up with conditional call forwarding with google voice.

I get a call restrictions message on the at&t phone and the Verizon phone just makes funny noise instead of completing the call.

My kids have at&t prepaid on iPhones. They were able to set the conditional call forwarding on their phones for google voice.
Title: Re: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: Ohmytvc15 on February 20, 2012, 01:53:42 PM
Quote from: RonR on February 18, 2012, 06:59:31 PM
Quote from: Ohmytvc15 on February 18, 2012, 06:31:52 PM
When I'm at home i can just answer my cordless phone which will save me cell phone minutes (I could just turn off my cell phone at home).

If you turn your cell phone off, don't calls immediately go to voicemail?  If so, Google Voice will consider the call answered and stop ringing the OBi.


I just found out I can call my cell phone provider and they call actually turn the voice mail service off. So I could just turn my cell phone off when I am at home if I want.
Title: Re: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: jimates on February 20, 2012, 02:53:53 PM
Quote from: Ohmytvc15 on February 20, 2012, 01:53:42 PM

I just found out I can call my cell phone provider and they call actually turn the voice mail service off. So I could just turn my cell phone off when I am at home if I want.
You can't do that with most prepaid services. For sure you can't with Tracfone or Net10 because that is controlled by the end provider (at&t or t-mo) not the middle man. I am not a customer of either at&t or t-mo, even though I have phones on both networks.
Title: Re: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: Ohmytvc15 on February 22, 2012, 02:39:02 PM
Quote from: jimates on February 20, 2012, 02:53:53 PM
Quote from: Ohmytvc15 on February 20, 2012, 01:53:42 PM

I just found out I can call my cell phone provider and they call actually turn the voice mail service off. So I could just turn my cell phone off when I am at home if I want.
You can't do that with most prepaid services. For sure you can't with Tracfone or Net10 because that is controlled by the end provider (at&t or t-mo) not the middle man. I am not a customer of either at&t or t-mo, even though I have phones on both networks.

It can be done with Net 10 which is AT&T. Just went into my GV settings for the cell phone and activated goggle voice mail. You send a code to AT&T and then you get a message back about conditional call divert turned on. Recieved my OBi today. Its working great, just the way I want it. Rings both phones. If i turn off my cell still rings my obi phone. Using google voice mail for both google chat and cell phone. I also have it set up so it sends texts to my cell and sends texts for emails. Perfect.  Super easy set-up, no more than 5 minutes on the web site.

Thanks for the help, Im a happy camper.
Title: Re: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: RonR on February 22, 2012, 03:05:26 PM
Quote from: Ohmytvc15 on February 22, 2012, 02:39:02 PM
Just went into my GV settings for the cell phone and activated goggle voice mail.

When your cell phone provider supplies your voicemail service, you usually aren't charged for the time that the caller uses leaving you the voicemail.

When you use a third-party voicemail service like Google Voice, many (most?) cell phone providers will treat that as simply having forwarded the incoming call to another number and you will be charged for the time that the caller uses leaving you the voicemail.
Title: Re: Before I buy...do I have this right?
Post by: jimates on February 23, 2012, 09:42:23 AM
Ohmytvc15,

glad it works for you, doesn't work for me with tracfone or net10.