Google Voice via OBI, mobile phone interaction

[dhobi]

My setup: GV via OBI as my "landline". My mobile is added to GV too but the forwarding box is not checked, only the chat box is checked so I can receive incoming calls to my OBI.

I would like to be able to forward my GV calls to my mobile when I travel, that's why I added my mobile number to GV, so I can disable the chat forward and enable mobile forward when I need to. However, I have a problem with this setup: I am not able to "call home" from my mobile, in other words call my GV number from my mobile. GV detects my mobile number and thinks I want to check my GV voicemail instead of ringing my OBI device (the forward to mobile box is not checked in GV). Is this possible to fix or just the way GV works?

If it's not possible to fix it, here are a couple of solutions I can think off, if you could comment on the pros cons of each one:

1) Have another GV number, let's call it GV2. Remove my mobile from GV and add it to GV2 and always forward GV2 to my mobile. Then set GV to forward to GV2 only when I need to, in effect going to my mobile. This is adding another level of indirection. I realize that if I'm not careful with the forwarding I can end up in a loop.

2) Have OBI forward all incoming calls to my mobile when I need to. I haven't figured out how to do so yet, but I've seen some star codes mentioned. The question here is if it's even possible to receive an incoming call via GV SP1 and then forward it to my mobile right away on the same GV SPa as I don't have another SP to forward via (I use SP2 for a dedicated VOIP provider for int'l calls only that is allowed to call only certain numbers, it can't call my mobile).

Has anyone else solved this problem?

[Stewart]

GV Settings, Phones tab, click Edit for your mobile, click Show advanced settings, under "Direct access to voicemail ..." select no, click Save.

[dhobi]

GV Settings, Phones tab, click Edit for your mobile, click Show advanced settings, under "Direct access to voicemail ..." select no, click Save.

I tried that but it still didn't work. My OBI device didn't ring, though I heard rings in the mobile until I ended up in the GV voicemail. The OBI device rings correctly if I call my GV from a phone that's not listed in the GV account.

[Stewart]

Possibly, your OBi is routing such calls differently.  What, if anything, gets logged in the OBi's Call History when you call your GV number from your mobile?

[dhobi]

Possibly, your OBi is routing such calls differently.  What, if anything, gets logged in the OBi's Call History when you call your GV number from your mobile?

Ah interesting. It shows the incoming call is routed to "AA1" I'm guessing because I added my mobile to the "Trusted Callers" on ObiTalk. But why isn't the OBI picking up in this case and I eventually hear the GV voicemail message? I guess I don't understand how I can use AA.

[Stewart]

If you want to use the AA, confirm that for SP1 (or SP2, whichever is GV), X_SkipCallScreening is checked.

However, unless you have another (less expensive or otherwise superior to GV) service to send calls out on, you are probably better off just taking your mobile out of the trusted callers list, because making an outbound call directly through GV will usually be better quality than going through the OBi.

[dhobi]

GV is SP1 and X_SkipCallScreening Value is checked while Default is unchecked. But it still doesn't seem to work.

I do have a dedicated SP2 for int'l calls that I was hoping to use from the road from my mobile via OBI, but I don't seem to be able to get to the AA.

[Stewart]

From your OBi phone, can you get to the AA by dialing **0?  When GV calls (from other sources) reach your phone, is Call Screening really off?  Make sure that AnswerDelay (and CallbackAnswerDelay, if your InboundCallRoute is specifying callback) is reasonable; defaults are 4000 and 10000.

Who is SP2 provider?  Calling what countries?  Landlines or cellular?  (I'm asking, because they may have a calling card service that works better than going through the OBi, or there may be a good alternative.) (I believe that all Betamax have calling card access, though most add a $0.003/min. surcharge for such use.)

[dhobi]

From your OBi phone, can you get to the AA by dialing **0?  When GV calls (from other sources) reach your phone, is Call Screening really off?  Make sure that AnswerDelay (and CallbackAnswerDelay, if your InboundCallRoute is specifying callback) is reasonable; defaults are 4000 and 10000.

Yes, I can dial **0 from the phone attached to the OBI and the AA picks up.
Call screening is off, it's disabled in the GV settings and I do not have the GV global spam enabled either.
AnswerDelay and CallbackAnswerDelay are at their defaults.

This is what the log looks like:

Call 1   03/01/2012    11:20:24   
Terminal ID   GoogleVoice1   AA1
Peer Name      
Peer Number   [mobile]   
Direction   Inbound   Inbound
11:20:24   Ringing   
11:20:28      Call Connected
11:20:44   End Call

So AA1 claims it picked up after 4 sec. but it didn't, it kept ringing for a few more seconds before GV voicemail picked up.

Who is SP2 provider?  Calling what countries?  Landlines or cellular?  (I'm asking, because they may have a calling card service that works better than going through the OBi, or there may be a good alternative.) (I believe that all Betamax have calling card access, though most add a $0.003/min. surcharge for such use.)

It's one of the Dellmont resellers. The mobile in this case is not a smart phone (a family member's phone) so I can't use their VOIP app directly on the mobile, hence my hope for being able to use the OBI AA.

[Stewart]

Sorry, assuming that X_SkipCallScreening is working, i.e. on a GV call not from your mobile, you can answer it without pressing any keys, I have no idea what may be wrong.  IMO you have two options: either troubleshoot the problem, or find an alternate approach.

For the former, I'd start by temporarily removing the mobile from trusted callers and confirm that a manual answer results in a connected call.  If so, I'd then capture traffic to "listen in" on the GV<->AA connection.

Possible alternatives:

Does calling via Dellmont access number work?  Does your reseller impose a surcharge?  Is there a good alternate for the countries you are calling?

Use the AA in callback mode (less convenient, but it should avoid the issue).

Call into the AA on a non-GV number.  Possibilities include IPKall (free, but may add significant latency), Anveo ($1 or $2/mo. for Value or Unlimited), or Localphone or Rebtel access via iNum (free, but complex and likely not the most reliable).

[dhobi]

Once I got the weird incoming GV call problem solved, the AA is working too. But I have to configure it manually via a X_InboundCallRoute rule on SP1 {(x.1234567890):aa},{ph} rather than via OBiTalk which I can no longer use.