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I for one can't wait for Google Voice, it should help cut down on some of the robo-call spam i've been receiving lately! Not to mention the other AWESOME featu

I for one can't wait for Google Voice, it should help cut down on some of the robo-call spam i've been receiving lately! Not to mention the other AWESOME features it has. Honestly when I first heard visual voicemail, I assumed it used speech recognition to convert voice to text. That isn't what it turned out to be, but luckily Google had the same idea and built it. Great for people who HATE listening to voicemails (like me)

viraptor 17y ago
To be honest there's nothing "new" in their offer. Look for business voip providers in your area and you'll see that those "awesome" features are simple things that you can get from almost anyone. Disclaimer: I work for a VoIP company and you can get almost all the features for ~7£/mo. Yes - it costs you more than google will charge you probably, but at least we have a support number if anything goes wrong ;) Also you can keep adding more PSTN numbers to that account. Google voice wants to support only one as far as I can tell. The only features from Google Voice list we don't support are: 'Listen in' (which I think would be illegal in UK), 'Personalize greeting' (noone asked for it really). 'Phone switch' is possible, but not as smooth as with GV. In general, I don't see anything new in their offer. Sure - it will be cheap, but also it won't be easy to get support if anything goes wrong (and do you really want to risk your main phone number this way?) They may advertise it as a new service, but in reality they're only catching up to the features others already have. Only thing I expect them to do better is "user experience" in configuring all this stuff. (but don't worry - normal VoIP providers will copy their control panel ideas in no time) Ah - just in case you think of VoIP that has to be transmitted over internet - stop. If you get a "proper" account from a provider who uses his own lines rather than forwarding trunks to some other company, your traffic doesn't have to touch the "best effort" internet at all. Your call will come in directly to the company over a guaranteed channel line, get routed and will leave over another guaranteed channel. (if you forward the call to your real mobile / other phone, that is)
rufo 17y ago
Don't get your hopes up too much about the transcription - you still need to listen to them to get the details. It's fine for getting a vague idea of what the call is about, but otherwise it really isn't very good. Also, if you get phone spam, GV will only help you if they let you port your number to them (which hasn't been the case in the past) - otherwise they're still going to call your direct number and bug you.

viraptor 17y ago

To be honest there's nothing "new" in their offer. Look for business voip providers in your area and you'll see that those "awesome" features are simple things that you can get from almost anyone. Disclaimer: I work for a VoIP company and you can get almost all the features for ~7£/mo. Yes - it costs you more than google will charge you probably, but at least we have a support number if anything goes wrong ;) Also you can keep adding more PSTN numbers to that account. Google voice wants to support only one as far as I can tell. The only features from Google Voice list we don't support are: 'Listen in' (which I think would be illegal in UK), 'Personalize greeting' (noone asked for it really). 'Phone switch' is possible, but not as smooth as with GV. In general, I don't see anything new in their offer. Sure - it will be cheap, but also it won't be easy to get support if anything goes wrong (and do you really want to risk your main phone number this way?) They may advertise it as a new service, but in reality they're only catching up to the features others already have. Only thing I expect them to do better is "user experience" in configuring all this stuff. (but don't worry - normal VoIP providers will copy their control panel ideas in no time) Ah - just in case you think of VoIP that has to be transmitted over internet - stop. If you get a "proper" account from a provider who uses his own lines rather than forwarding trunks to some other company, your traffic doesn't have to touch the "best effort" internet at all. Your call will come in directly to the company over a guaranteed channel line, get routed and will leave over another guaranteed channel. (if you forward the call to your real mobile / other phone, that is)

rufo 17y ago

Don't get your hopes up too much about the transcription - you still need to listen to them to get the details. It's fine for getting a vague idea of what the call is about, but otherwise it really isn't very good. Also, if you get phone spam, GV will only help you if they let you port your number to them (which hasn't been the case in the past) - otherwise they're still going to call your direct number and bug you.