Obivoice (Intelafone) vs. Forthcoming Obihai Service?

[AlanB]

Seems like it might be an option to forward GV to. As far as porting a number it seems risky. My userid is 35xx. If they are in numerical order that's low.   Let's assume at max half the customers have signed up at $25/yr. that about 45,000 /yr. I could handle if they went under and I lost a few dollars. I'd hate to lose my phone number though.

I decided to as Obivoice directly about what would happen to my number in the event they went out of business.  This is what I heard back:

Worst case scenario, because we are re-seller (like google voice) and partnered with a larger publicly traded upstream carrier. In the event that we were to go out of business you would have at minimum 30 days to port your number out to another carrier without loosing it.

[Toto]

Ok, so I am in the same boat as the rest of you obi users who still have GV as a service provider and after doing some homework and reading the posts in this form, I think that obivoice may be the best choice for our home phone service. We have only one line with a set of cordless phones and get DSL internet through Centurylink. We have had an obi100 for a year or so now but have not been too happy with GV lately due to dropped calls and people getting cut off when the phone only rings two times.
I went to the obivoice sign up page but when I checked to see if our current number will transfer, it said it would not. I understand about signing up with obivoice and getting a new number which our existing number can be forwarded to so people can use our old number and still reach us, but what happens when GV service will no longer work through obi devices? Will the forwarding setup no longer work then and if so, is there any way I can keep our old number and use obivoice?
Like so many other people, I am looking for a good cheap alternative that will let me keep our number, give us 911 service, and be reliable. We don't use the home phones that much but need a way for family members to reach us. I do not understand about DID's, SIP's, or MMXP.

[AlanB]

Toto,

If you can't port your number you can always keep your number with GV.  You will be able to forward your number to OBIVoice.   Your incoming calls will come through GV and ObiVoice.  Your Obi will be connected to Obivoice.

For outgoing calls, you will be using ObiVoice.  You can "spoof" your caller ID so that it displays as your current GV phone number.

[oecra]

I went to the obivoice sign up page but when I checked to see if our current number will transfer, it said it would not. I understand about signing up with obivoice and getting a new number which our existing number can be forwarded to so people can use our old number and still reach us, but what happens when GV service will no longer work through obi devices? Will the forwarding setup no longer work then and if so, is there any way I can keep our old number and use obivoice?

Forwarding will continue to work after May 15th. 

[riptcity00]

Toto,

If you can't port your number you can always keep your number with GV.  You will be able to forward your number to OBIVoice.   Your incoming calls will come through GV and ObiVoice.  Your Obi will be connected to Obivoice.

For outgoing calls, you will be using ObiVoice.  You can "spoof" your caller ID so that it displays as your current GV phone number.

I did this with the idea that I could always port my number out of Google Voice later if needed since my number can be ported.  So far, everything has been working fine.  I haven't had any issues with call quality or other issues with GV and Obivoice combination. 

[pismo10]

Signed up today, 2 yr un for $75. Can't sign up with Chrome browser. So far so good, works, port next from Vonage. We'll see...

[Toto]

Okay so I went ahead and signed up for a obivoice account, got a number and did the spoofing along with the verifying that the site required. Our phone rang and I put in the 2 digit code, so that part is all done. Now I want to forward my GV number so that people dialing it will ring through to my new obivoice number. At first I thought this had to be done on the obi site but I saw nothing there about call forwarding, so then I logged onto my Google voice account. I saw where there was a checkbox next to forward calls to Google chat but there was no other place to put in or pick a different number for call forwarding.

I went back to the obivoice site (Vestalink) and tried there but again saw nothing in my account setup page on call forwarding. I decided to ask about it on their support center page. I found what seemed to be the answer nice and clear there except for one thing. It says to go to your Google voice account and use the "add a phone" feature to put in the information showing how to get to the right page by clicking on your phone number (GV number) on the left side of the page. I did this and filled in my new obivoice number as the new number which I was then told also had to be verified. I have tried verifying it several times now and the call will not go through. What am I doing wrong and what should I do next?

[cluckercreek]

Obivoice/Vestalink has instructions under their support section regarding forwarding your GV number.

[Toto]

Obivoice/Vestalink has instructions under their support section regarding forwarding your GV number.

That is exactly the page I went to and followed the directions which were on it as I described in my previous post. I went to my Google voice account like it said and added my obivoice number as a new phone. The problem is that a message box comes up saying the number has to be verified again just as it was on the obivoice site, but the verification does not go through and I have tried many times.
Verification on the obivoice site went right through, so i don't understand the problem.

[MikeHObi]

Obivoice/Vestalink has instructions under their support section regarding forwarding your GV number.

but the verification does not go through and I have tried many times.
Verification on the obivoice site went right through, so i don't understand the problem.

Note, I have had this problem happen with Google Voice before unrelated to my account that uses voip.  This where I get a new number to forward to, it asks me to verify I click the button to have it call, and my phone never rings.  It just sits there.  I think the GV system has problems from time to time.

[riptcity00]

Obivoice/Vestalink has instructions under their support section regarding forwarding your GV number.

but the verification does not go through and I have tried many times.
Verification on the obivoice site went right through, so i don't understand the problem.

Note, I have had this problem happen with Google Voice before unrelated to my account that uses voip.  This where I get a new number to forward to, it asks me to verify I click the button to have it call, and my phone never rings.  It just sits there.  I think the GV system has problems from time to time.

I had this problem before as well and don't remember exactly what I did.  I think the first time I added a number on GV that needed verification, I had to use a softphone with a pc so that Google Voice would ring my pc to validate the number.  Otherwise the number kept showing in the call logs, but I never actually got a call ring tone.  If you have a smartphone, can you use the obivoice softphone software to do this?

[riptcity00]

Atually my problem had to do with the SIP ALG option on my router which was blocking incoming sip calls.  Check your router settings to see how it handles sip calls.  I'm trying to look up my support conversations, but I think this is what finally allowed the calls to start ringing.

[Toto]

I was able to solve the verification problem. It turned out to be a problem with the Obivoice setup. When I set up my account and followed their step by step process to sign up for a free 30 day trial, there was no pop up window telling me to power off my obi100 and reboot it during the setup. While the the obivoice site said my phone was now hooked up to their system, it was not, so when the Google voice site tried to verify the number that obivoice had given me, it would not go through and my phone would not ring. I realized this when someone called me using my old Google voice number which showed that the phone was still tied to that number.

I contacted the Obi voice company and got a quick reply in only a couple of hours. In it was a link to a tutorial page about setting up your obi device and it included the step about rebooting the device. Once I went through the process again and included a reboot, my phone number changed and I was able to get Google voice to verify it so I could forward my obivoice number to my old Google voice number.
I only hope that once Google voice no longer works with my obi, that the forwarding process still works and I won't have to change my phone number again.
Thanks everyone for trying to help me.  

[LarryP]

I signed up with Vestalink for the free trial.  So far not impressed largely because they HAVE NOT been responsive to email.  It took 2 emails over a couple of days to get a response.  It's hard to get up the courage to sign up when they have poor customer service.