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One way to do this without setting up a server or moving your phone number to another provider: 1. setup an unconditional redirect for all calls on your cell p

One way to do this without setting up a server or moving your phone number to another provider: 1. setup an unconditional redirect for all calls on your cell phone to a voip.ms DID that you set up ($1/month). This redirect functionality is baked into the gsm system: https://www.geckobeach.com/cellular/secrets/gsmcodes.php https://www.geckobeach.com/cellular/secrets/gsmcodes.php 2. On voip.ms, setup an IVR with a recorded message. Set it up to connect extension “1-2-3-4” or whatever your code is to your softphone. You should be able to whitelist numbers to auto-forward to your soft phone. Cool thing is you can setup voicemail through this so you receive them as email attachments. SMS still works through your cell phone. Outgoing calls still go through your cellphone.

gnicholas 5y ago
This sounds very cool! A couple naive questions: How do income calls come in? Do I use an app instead of the phone app? Does this introduce any additional latency into my inbound calls? I dislike Google Voice for this reason. How hard would this be for someone to set up (assuming said person just had to google "soft phone" to understand your comment)? Are there any security, reliability, or other risks to be aware of?
- walrus01 5y ago
  as the above poster has described it you would need a SIP softphone client running on your cellphone, over your data service, connected to your voip service provider's account. definitely there would be more latency.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    Though it makes me wonder how/why they find Google Voice’s latency is noticeable. I can’t tell when someone is calling me locally or from across the continent. Maybe GV has few (and overloaded) POPs?
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  1. Through the softphone (think Skype, but more configurable). 2. Yes, more latency in most situations on incoming calls. Voip.ms does let you choose servers in different cities/countries, so your ISP’s routing starts to matter. It might be better or worse than Google Voice, I don’t have any experience with GV. 3. I think most people here could figure it out, but having to google “softphone” isn’t a great start :) 4. Nice thing about this whole setup is that you can turn it all off in a few keystrokes on your phone, and then your cellphone rings normally. You don’t have to worry about your phone number being lost unless you get sim-swapped. If voip.ms goes down, your incoming calls will stop until you deactivate it as above. One positive is that you can set up your incoming calls to simultaneously ring multiple phone numbers and softphones if you wanted.

gnicholas 5y ago

This sounds very cool! A couple naive questions: How do income calls come in? Do I use an app instead of the phone app? Does this introduce any additional latency into my inbound calls? I dislike Google Voice for this reason. How hard would this be for someone to set up (assuming said person just had to google "soft phone" to understand your comment)? Are there any security, reliability, or other risks to be aware of?

walrus01 5y ago
as the above poster has described it you would need a SIP softphone client running on your cellphone, over your data service, connected to your voip service provider's account. definitely there would be more latency.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  Though it makes me wonder how/why they find Google Voice’s latency is noticeable. I can’t tell when someone is calling me locally or from across the continent. Maybe GV has few (and overloaded) POPs?
Scoundreller 5y ago
1. Through the softphone (think Skype, but more configurable). 2. Yes, more latency in most situations on incoming calls. Voip.ms does let you choose servers in different cities/countries, so your ISP’s routing starts to matter. It might be better or worse than Google Voice, I don’t have any experience with GV. 3. I think most people here could figure it out, but having to google “softphone” isn’t a great start :) 4. Nice thing about this whole setup is that you can turn it all off in a few keystrokes on your phone, and then your cellphone rings normally. You don’t have to worry about your phone number being lost unless you get sim-swapped. If voip.ms goes down, your incoming calls will stop until you deactivate it as above. One positive is that you can set up your incoming calls to simultaneously ring multiple phone numbers and softphones if you wanted.