Does google voice use your cell phone minutes

[jacobh]

Hello I just got my obi set up through google voice.  I am just wondering if calls made from my home phone will be charged against my cellphone minutes. I assume the answer is yes but the google chat thing kinda confuses me.

thanks for your help

Jacob

[RonR]

There's no charge at least through the end of the year for calls made through Google Voice.  If you call your cell phone, your wireless carrier will treat that as an incoming call and charge you applicable air-time minutes.

[Wallysun]

My Tmobile cell phone minutes were used!

I have both my home landline phone number and Tmobile phone number added to my Google Voice account. But my Tmobile minutes were used. Now I have to remove my cell phone number from GV.

[Rick]

My Tmobile cell phone minutes were used!

I have both my home landline phone number and Tmobile phone number added to my Google Voice account. But my Tmobile minutes were used. Now I have to remove my cell phone number from GV.

Yes, GV sending calls to your cell phone could use your minutes.

A way around this is to setup, if you have the feature, your GV number as a "favorite / in circle", i.e. one of the numbers that you can call or which can call your cell, for free.  Then, when GV forwards your calls, there are no cell minutes are used.  I've been using GV for 18 months for my business, before my OBI, in this manner.

[Stewart]

A way around this is to setup, if you have the feature, your GV number as a "favorite / in circle", i.e. one of the numbers that you can call or which can call your cell, for free.  Then, when GV forwards your calls, there are no cell minutes are used. 

Who is your cell carrier?  With most, the "favorite" feature (for incoming calls) is based on caller ID.  To make it work, you would have to set up GV to send the GV number as caller ID; you would lose the ability to know who was calling before answering, would be unable to return calls from call history, etc.

[Rick]

A way around this is to setup, if you have the feature, your GV number as a "favorite / in circle", i.e. one of the numbers that you can call or which can call your cell, for free.  Then, when GV forwards your calls, there are no cell minutes are used. 

Who is your cell carrier?  With most, the "favorite" feature (for incoming calls) is based on caller ID.  To make it work, you would have to set up GV to send the GV number as caller ID; you would lose the ability to know who was calling before answering, would be unable to return calls from call history, etc.

You are correct, I have GV sending the GV number as caller ID (this is before my OBI).  So I know it's a GV incoming call, and am not charged cell minutes.  If I switched it to not showing the GV number, then of course I would be charged minutes. 

All 4 of us have Google accounts and GV numbers, although I'm really the main user of GV.  I elected to setup a separate Google account for my OBI, and plan (after getting my alarm squared away) to port my landline number to GV for use with the OBI (I setup a separate account both for porting the landline AND not giving my main Google account info to OBI).  Therefore, THAT particular account I can setup to not use the GV number, and it will send through the caller's phone number. 

Should I choose to forward that number to my cell, then yes, it would use minutes.  I will likely NOT forward it except in times of traveling away from home (whole family), since GV both transcribes the voicemail (although not well) AND gives me a link on my cell to play the message right on my cell.  I have no urgency to home phone calls that I have to answer them while not at the house. 

[Rick]

Who is your cell carrier?  With most, the "favorite" feature (for incoming calls) is based on caller ID.  To make it work, you would have to set up GV to send the GV number as caller ID; you would lose the ability to know who was calling before answering, would be unable to return calls from call history, etc.

Also, the entire call history is in my GV account, although it's not on my home phone, so if they didn't leave a message I would need to look in my online history to see who called.  I don't call back people who don't leave messages though...  Haven't ever had callerid on my home phone, so even knowing the number of who is calling will be new.  We get very few home phone calls excluding immediate family.