OBiTALK Community

Region Specific Technical / Service Provider Support => North America - Including Google Voice, Skype, etc. => Topic started by: restamp on January 29, 2017, 12:45:52 PM

Title: Problems rolling to GV voicemail
Post by: restamp on January 29, 2017, 12:45:52 PM
With its renewed interest in Google Voice, has Google perhaps modified the timing that it uses to roll a call to voicemail if the GV call is not answered?  Recently, it seems a lot more of messages left in response to my unanswered calls are winding up in the voice mailboxes of my forwarding phones instead of in my Google VM box.  This used to be a rarity, but lately it seems it's been happening more often than not.  Has anyone else been seeing this?  Any ideas?
Title: Re: Problems rolling to GV voicemail
Post by: Taoman on January 29, 2017, 01:13:33 PM
Interesting. I just did a couple of quick tests on 2 different lines and it does appear as if the ring time before GV voicemail picks up has been increased from 25 to 30 seconds. Obviously nothing definitive but that's what it appears like to me.

Perhaps SteveInWa will chime in.
Title: Re: Problems rolling to GV voicemail
Post by: SteveInWA on January 29, 2017, 03:35:58 PM
I haven't heard anything from Google about changing that interval.

The definitive test would be to go into Google Voice Settings (if you have migrated to the new web GUI, then scroll way down to the lower section of the page, to the "Calls" section), and remove the check marks next to all of your forwarding destinations (10-digit telephone numbers and Chat).  Now, your calls won't be forwarded anywhere (well, they'll ring any logged-in Hangouts clients, but for this test, we don't care).  In other words, this removes all added delay introduced by the call forwarding from Google Voice's outbound switch, through various transit carriers, to your forwarding phone number.

Call your GV number from a phone not on your list of forwarding phones.  Time the ring interval, from the moment you hit the last digit to the moment you hear the GV VM greeting begin.  If you are calling from a VoIP service, hit # at the end of the phone number to eliminate the wait time for more digits.  Call from either a POTS line or a VoIP land line.  Calls from mobile phones are too variable to be meaningful; they may incur some considerable added delay from the wireless phone network.

It is expected that the interval will be slightly longer than 25 seconds, since there will be some telco network switching time included.  Total time of 30 seconds would not be surprising.  It shouldn't be longer than that. 
Title: Re: Problems rolling to GV voicemail
Post by: SteveInWA on January 29, 2017, 05:24:34 PM
I just now ran a few test calls, from Localphone, and from a T-Mobile number, to my Google Voice number (I don't have a POTS line any more).  In all cases, my Google Voice voicemail picked up the calls at approximately 25 seconds after I heard the first ringback tone, so perhaps 26-27 seconds, total from the time I hit the "send" key.  So, I don't see a problem.
Title: Re: Problems rolling to GV voicemail
Post by: restamp on January 29, 2017, 10:39:17 PM
Interesting.  I'm seeing 28 - 28.5 seconds from last touch-tone to start of voicemail announcement.  Maybe it has always been that long, but it sure seems like the cell phone voicemails are beating Google's VM a lot more often than they used to.  (How I wish the android cell phone apps would include an option to send an out-of-band touch-tone sequence on answer.  Then I could turn on Call Screening and these problems would all be moot.)

Thanks Tao, Steve.
Title: Re: Problems rolling to GV voicemail
Post by: DarkOptix on February 12, 2017, 09:32:17 PM
Google voice picks up but does not have any audible greeting ie my Google voice message does not play. Not sure what to do.