Quirks in accessing GV voicemail with PhonePower from handset when spoofing

[bucksitter]

The subject could be expanded to include "possibly other ITSPs as well."

For anyone who uses GV and its voicemail for your incoming calls, and intends to keep using it while switching to a new ITSP, consider that the idea of spoofing the GV number with the new ITSP for outgoing calls (a commonly offered feature and commonly desired) may bring you into conflict with a fundamental technique of accessing GV voicemail. That would be when you want to pick up the handset of the phone connected to the OBi and dial your GV number to retrieve your GV voicemail. What you're then doing is trying to call in to a number from the same number (due to the spoofing), and not a number that's listed in GV as being a forwarding number (which there should be an entry of your new PhonePower or other ITSP number to get incoming GV calls forwarded to you by). This has, for me, resulted in no convenient way to accomplish accessing GV VM from my new revised OBi setup.  I have to use another phone (cell in this case) that's a forwarding phone for my GV setup, or use a computer.

Some have found that by doing the CID block move with *67 before dialing out, then hitting * and following GV prompts allows access.  I haven't found that works too well for me. I think it means I have to wait for the ring timeout (GV 25 seconds) before I can hear my GV outgoing message and hit *, then follow further prompts. I have Call Screening with name announce in use, and this seems to further mess things up. Meanwhile, all other GV forwarded phones are ringing through the timeout period. Not a good workaround for me.

Just thought I'd bring up the observation that spoofing the GV number has this one glaring drawback, although I don't get frequent voicemail, and I can deal with using other devices to retrieve it.  So there's a tradeoff involved. I wonder how number spoofing affects other ITSPs that users here have chosen.  Comments welcome.

[SteveInWA]

Hi:  See this post from azrobert:

http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=7890.msg51309#msg51309

One thing in the post that may be confusing, is that he assumes you already have some other forwarding phone numbers listed in your GV settings, and then instructs you to ask your ITSP to set up a spoofed caller ID number in a sub-account.

The big picture is:  GV isn't letting you call in to its VM system from your own GV number's caller ID, so you need to call in from any other number.  To eliminate the nuisance factor of having to enter your GV number as proof of your identity when doing this, you can call in from any of your already-verified forwarding numbers (add one here, if you don't already have one: https://www.google.com/voice#phones ). 

So, assuming you have a forwarding phone on that list, whose caller ID is NOT your GV number, either call in from that number, or use Robert's method to set up a voice gateway, using that number.

Bonus information:  if you happen to be a GV/Sprint integration user (you are using your Sprint-owned number as your GV number's caller ID), then GV will allow you to call in to its VM system from any other phone that spoofs your Sprint number.  It's highly recommended that users do not disable the GV VM PIN requirement, as this is a security and privacy exposure.

[bucksitter]

Wow, pretty slick with that sub account solution. I wonder if PhonePower will do that for me (us). Guess I can try and find out. The entry of all that is, I assume, in the Expert area of the OBi configuration, or would I need to access the web page? Have not approached that as of yet.

[azrobert]

If your current provider can't provide a sub-account you can use CircleNet for VM access.
I don't know how often you access your VM or if it's worth the extra expense to you, but CircleNet's average cost per minute is less than 1/2 cent. Phoenix is $.00471 and Los Angeles is $.00356.
I think they still give you $2.00 free credit when you signup.