No Incoming Calls Received from Particular Provider

[dryland]

Hi, I have been lurking here for a few months, since shortly before I cut the cord from my old service provider and purchased an obi 200, and this forum helped me through the decision-making process and initial growing pains of VOIP.  I'm hoping that someone here can help me through a problem that cropped up last week.  

First, my stats: Obi 200, Google Voice, with CallCentric 911 service

Last week, my mother switched her landline provider from AT&T to a local provider (my city owns and provides video, phone, and internet services). After she switched to the local provider, we discovered that she was unable to contact me using her new landline. I do not receive her landline calls at all...no ringing, no voicemail, no nothing. On her end, she hears a prerecorded/standard message saying that I am unavailable to take her call.  (I did not set up that particular message, nor have I blocked anyone, much less my mother. )  I've checked the obi's Status>Call History and there is no record of a call from her landline...it's like it never happened.  Her landline does not appear in the History of my GoogleVoice account either.  She is, however, able to contact me just fine via her AT&T cell phone.  A friend also has service with this local provider and experienced the same result when trying to call me via landline.  I seem to receive calls from all other providers and can call out without any problems. The Incoming Call issue seems to exist between my obi/GoogleVoice and the local provider only.

I have reset and rebooted my obi, deleted the device and reinstalled, and double-checked that GoogleChat was set for forwarding calls,  my Google Voice number is still active and the correct Google account is selected,, and Inbound CallRoute is to "ph." Everything seems to be in order.  However, I'll be the first to admit that this stuff is over my head.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[SteveInWA]

Hi:

This symptom happens occasionally with these small telephone carriers.  That carrier isn't properly routing their outbound calls to Google Voice.  Somewhere, in the string of several carriers between them and Google's carrier, the call is failing.  You will need to get her, or one of your other callers using that carrier, to troubleshoot the call starting from their end.  Google can't help in these cases, since the calls are not reaching their switch.

[dryland]

Thanks so much for your reply, SteveInWA. That would never have occurred to me.  I'm grateful to at least have a solid starting point to try to fix this. 

Thanks again!

[SteveInWA]

You're welcome.  There is one thing that is suspicious, though.  You described the message that the caller hears a stating that you are unavailable for a call.  That's not what I would expect the caller to hear, unless it's something unusual that their carrier is playing.  Typically, the caller should hear a "Your call cannot be completed at this time..." message, or a "The number you called is disconnected or not in service..." message, often with a switch identifier at the end of the message like "WA 123".  The message would usually be prefaced with a Special Information Tone, or SIT, like this:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_information_tones

If you can get the exact words spoken in the message, and have the caller contact that telephone company with the issue, they should be able to trace the calls outbound from their switch.

On the other hand, if you can get a recording of the message and/or hear it yourself, listen carefully to the voice.  Then, listen to this recording of Kiki, the woman who records all of the Google Voice messages, to see if they are the same person or not:  http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/new-voice-of-google-voice.html

[dryland]

The message that my mother hears is "Telephone number xxx-xxx-xxxx can't take your call at this time. At the tone, please leave a message or simply hang up." Neither my phone nor my tablet can play that vid/sound file, but I appreciate the effort!

I went to my mom's house today and called her provider (using her landline) to discuss the issue. The tech called my number and heard the message (I could hear it over the speaker).  He did whatever is involved to check the system (after hanging up with me) and noted that everything seemed to be working on their end, but then asked me about it being a forwarded number.  I really couldn't go too deep into that, but I did my best to explain how, yes there is a forwarding aspect to it and GoogleChat, my number, and obi work in concert together to immediately ring my landline phone (as well as forwarding to my cell, which always rings within one second of the landline).  I also noted that other providers' calls work seamlessly using this method.  He opened a ticket for another tech to look into it and told me to expect a phone call (on my cell! ) tomorrow.

Crossing my fingers...

Thanks again.  I'll let you know if anything fruitful comes of this.

[SteveInWA]

Hmmm.

That recorded message is not coming from Google Voice.  It sounds like you have somehow forwarded your Google Voice number to a different telephone number, which is playing that recording.  It could be the default voicemail greeting on your forwarding phone (provided by your cell phone carrier, for example).

[dryland]

I looked at my GV settings and don't see anything different than usual.  Should I play it safe and remove my cell as a "forward calls to" number?

I took a screenshot of my GV settings but don't see a way of attaching it here.  Here's a dropbox link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uys7r2d42ju0jdb/gv%20settings.jpg?dl=0

[SteveInWA]

Thanks for the screenshot!

No, this isn't being caused by your forwarding phone setting on Google Voice.  What's likely happening is that the inbound call is going to your cell phone's voicemail system instead of Google's voicemail system.

You said earlier that callers from carriers other than this one can reach you.  To be clear:  if I were to call your Google Voice telephone number, would it ring on your AT&T forwarding phone, and you could answer the call and talk with me?  What if you didn't answer the call, would it go to your Google Voice's voicemail box?  Do all unanswered calls successfully reach your Google Voice VM box?

Is this a regular, postpaid AT&T Wireless phone service, or is it with a reseller like Straight Talk or Cricket or ?  What kind of mobile phone handset are you using?

[SteveInWA]

In addition to the questions I posted above, if you want to test whether or not this is being caused by your cell phone, you can temporarily remove the check mark to the left of that number on the settings page you posted.

[dryland]

Sorry for the delayed reply, I had to dance between a few devices to check on your questions.  Here we go:

Whenever someone calls me from an AT&T phone, their call rings through both to my Google 'landline' and to my cell phone.  I can answer the call either with my landline phone or my cell.  There is a millisecond pause between the two, but it is near simultaneous.  If I don't answer the call and it goes to voicemail, it goes to my landline phone's voicemail. (I just tested this by having someone call my landline/Googlevoice number and listening to my outgoing message while the call was in progress. FYI, my cell also rang through as expected) It does not go to my cell's voicemail and does not seemingly connect with my GoogleVoice voicemail's outgoing message (which is different enough to distinguish between the two).  To the best of my knowledge, all of my unanswered calls go to my landline phone's voicemail (as verified via the text messaging setting in GV, received voicemails, and nobody tracking me down to tell me that I missed their call, I guess).

My cell phone is through AT&T's regular wireless service.  My cell phone is an iPhone 4s.  (My landline phone with the voicemail is some freaky foreign gizmo that my sister insisted that I have:  a Sagemcom Sixty.)

I think I will try removing my cell from that checklist, but I fear that I've exhausted my goodwill with my friend/family 'testers' for now and will hold back from calling them to see if it makes any difference.

Edited to add:  I don't know if this is relevant, but it just occurred to me to mention that I have distributed the obi/phone service throughout my house's existing wall jacks by following the directions found here. I have completely disconnected my house from the outside/former provider.

[SteveInWA]

I'm getting confused by your terminology usage.  Let's avoid the use of "land line".

IF you properly set up your Google Voice account, then you have an inbound Google Voice telephone number.  This "virtual number" forwards to two destinations:  Google Chat, and your AT&T cell phone.  Your OBi emulates (acts as) a Google Chat client.  The telephone plugged into your OBi will ring whenever a call is received by your Google Voice number, and you've check-marked the Chat box in the list of forwarding destinations.  So, let's call that your OBi.

At this point, it's unclear to me what you are hearing.  If you have an answering machine function on the telephone plugged into your OBi, you should disable it completely.

On your AT&T Wireless phone number, you should enable AT&T's conditional call forwarding feature.  CCF will forward unanswered or busy calls back to Google Voice's VM system.

To enable CCF, go to your Google Voice settings page again, on the Phones tab.  Click the link that says "Activate Google voicemail on this phone".  This will pop up a box, with a string of digits in it.  Clicking this link does nothing at all to Google Voice settings.  It merely displays the instructions for you to type in the digit string on your AT&T Wireless phone's keypad.  It should start with **004*, then your 10-digit Google Voice number, then #.  Enter that string on your iPhone, press Send and wait for confirmation.

Now, you should be able to test inbound calling from a variety of sources, and the caller should hear your Google Voice's voicemail greeting (what you called the outgoing message).  They should then be able to leave a message.  Anything else that they hear is being generated by some other voicemail system -- either an answering machine at your house, or your AT&T Wireless greeting.

[dryland]

At this point, it's unclear to me what you are hearing.  If you have an answering machine function on the telephone plugged into your OBi, you should disable it completely.

This is exactly what was happening. Out of curiosity, is this step necessary? Does having my phone's answering machine on somehow clutter or confuse the Google/obi system setup? Because I actually prefer keeping my messages on my phone's own system (which has a blinking light to notify me of new messages). But I have already turned it off as you suggested and will live with Google Voice voicemail if necessary.

While I love the option of forwarding the Google Voice number through to my cell, I would prefer to keep my cell's voicemail and missed calls on my cell network and separate from Google. Is there a reason other than consolidation and perceived convenience to engage the CCF?

Thank you for your clear explanation of how the GoogleVoice number, GoogleChat, and OBi work together and for taking the time to walk me through all this.  I suspect it'll come in handy when I speak to the tech guy(s) tomorrow.

Edited to add: I think I may see what you're getting at regarding turning my phone's answering machine off and setting up CCF for my cell...are you trying to just isolate everything to GoogleVoice in order to basically eliminate those others as possible sources of complications so that we can then say with confidence that there can be no other culprit except for GoogleVoice or the local landline provider?

[SteveInWA]

OK, so it sounds like there was nothing wrong with your Google Voice number; the problem was caused by your answering machine.  There is nothing that the phone company techs need to do.  It's working as designed.

Your comments and preferences suggest that you only want to use Google Voice as a "free telephone company".  That is not its designed purpose.  It's a full-function inbound telephone call and text message management system.

If you prefer to just keep all of these things separate, and use a good old-fashioned answering machine, I think you'd be happier using your OBi with one of the paid SIP VoIP telephone service providers.  Your OBi would then simply be like a telephone jack.

Most of us here are happy with the service provided by Callcentric, voip.ms or Phonepower.  These three carriers offer the best balance of price, features, quality of service, reliability and support.

If you go that route, you can port your Google Voice number out to the SIP ITSP of your choice.

[dryland]

OK, so it sounds like there was nothing wrong with your Google Voice number; the problem was caused by your answering machine.  There is nothing that the phone company techs need to do.  It's working as designed.

So the answering machine could confuse (only one) provider's system and to such an extent that calls from that provider are not allowed through to my obi at all? That's amazing.

Like I mentioned, I will change my obi-phone and cell preferences if it helps to make this system function correctly.  But if change is not necessary, then I am happy to keep things separate. Regardless, it's not a deal breaker for me to have to change a couple of things to make it work and I want to give this an honest shot before I try something else.

Thanks again.

[drgeoff]

Something doesn't stack up in all of this.

If your phone with integral answering machine is plugged in to only the OBi200, then the only way the answering machine can play the "Telephone number xxx-xxx-xxxx can't take your call ..." to a caller is in response to a call coming in to the OBi200.  Yet in the first post is stated "I've checked the obi's Status>Call History and there is no record of a call from her landline...it's like it never happened.  Her landline does not appear in the History of my GoogleVoice account either."

Are you 110% certain that the house wiring, into which both the OBi200 and the phone are connected, really is totally disconnected from the outside world?

[dryland]

drgeoff, all I can say is that my mother hears that message when she calls me from her landline/local provider. And when she then calls me via her cell after that unsuccessful attempt, I've checked the obi Status and there is no entry whatsoever of her previous attempt. It happens every time. Note, the greeting she hears during these unsuccessful attempts is not the same as the custom recorded outgoing greeting on my answering machine. I believe Steve was trying to determine its source upthread and then we realized that my answering machine and cell voicemail preferences were complicating that search and overall functionality.

I'm fairly certain that I successfully disconnected my house and system from the old provider.  Following the instructions here (http://mi-telecom.org/distribute.html), I unplugged the telephone plugs inside my house's network interface box.

Thanks!

[dryland]

UPDATE!

I spoke with one of the local provider's tech guys this afternoon and he was able to resolve my issue.  It turns out that after I ported my telephone number from them to GoogleVoice, the local provider did not fully release my number from their system, which resulted in the 'blockage. ' So it was the local provider's greeting that my mother was hearing.  I don't know how long it would have taken me to discover this if my Mom hadn't switched her services, but I am so relieved that problem is fixed.

Thank you Steve for your patience and willingness to plug away at this and drgeoff for your interest!

Edited to add: I just realized that I had not previously mentioned that my GoogleVoice number had been ported over from the local provider (with a short stay at Tracfone) and that that information might have sent up a red flag earlier in this thread.   It truly hadn't occurred to me that it could have been an issue and I don't think I've read anything similar in my research here and on other GoogleVoice forum/threads. In hindsight it feels like an obvious omission and I'm slapping my head at my oversight.

[MurrayB]

This has been an interesting saga!

[dryland]

It has certainly felt like a saga! But it sure made me more familiar with my OBi setup and made me think a little deeper and from a different perspective about its associated infrastructure, so I don't consider that a wasted effort. I can't even be angry that the local provider apparently didn't do their due diligence during the porting process, I'm just happy to put an end to this week-long ordeal (and that my elderly mother doesn't have to hunt down her cell phone whenever she wants to talk to me!).

[SteveInWA]

Edited to add: I just realized that I had not previously mentioned that my GoogleVoice number had been ported over from the local provider (with a short stay at Tracfone) and that that information might have sent up a red flag earlier in this thread.   It truly hadn't occurred to me that it could have been an issue and I don't think I've read anything similar in my research here and on other GoogleVoice forum/threads. In hindsight it feels like an obvious omission and I'm slapping my head at my oversight.

Well, I never would have figured that out.  Glad you finally solved the mystery.  Here's your dope slap: