Google Voice setup from Canada

I briefly tried three times before to setup Google voice from Canada with no luck. Many guides exist on the internet to help you with this, problem is they are out of date and just don't see to work. The fourth time was a charm for me. Before thinking about going to all this effort you should realize that you can't get a Canadian google voice number, but with a little effort you can get your US Google Voice number forwarded to any Canadian number. Regardless, using it does give you a chance to play with it so that once Canadian numbers are available, you will be familiar with the service.

The problem with activating a Google Voice account is Google Voice wants to phone you at a US based phone number and have you enter a two digit confirmation code as part of the activation. This requires a number of steps to get working from Canada.

Steps.

1. Request an Google Voice invite from Google. Invite
2. Setup a Canadian 403 phone number and forward it to whatever number you want, seems Google Voice will forward to that one Canadian area code(403). See details below*.
3. Use the phone number generated in step 2 to activate Google Voice. You may need to use a US based proxy, see Hotspot Shield, for this step.

OR

How to bypass Google voice country restrictions for free

Did you try to subscribe to Google Voice but where stuck on a message like this:

Google Voice is not available in your country.
Thanks for visiting Google Voice.
We're not yet open for users outside the US,
but are planning to expand our service to additional countries in the future.

Steps:

1. Register for a google voice invitation. Be patient it can take one year to come  www.services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/
   When you receive your Google Voice invitation, process to the next step
2. Create a free SIP account with Iptel http://serweb.iptel.org/user/reg/index.php
3. Configure your VOIP router or Softphone to receive calls from the SIP account you created on step one
   Register a free US DID on your Iptel SIP account.

   • SIP Phone number: your IPtel user name (ex: Jonh.Smith)
   • SIP Proxy: iptel.org

4. Test your US DID. If you don't want to pay for long distance call, you can use iCall http://www.icall.com/free-phone-calls/
5. Download and install a US VPN (HotSpot Shield) http://hotspotshield.com/
6. Launch Hotspot Shield
7. Click on your Google Voice invitation (see, no more country restriction message)
8. Choose your new US phone number
9. When requested, enter the US phone number you created with IPKall

Google Voice and freephoneline.ca Setup (Calgary Alberta)

Setup a Canadian 403 phone number and forward it to whatever number you want, seems Google Voice will forward to that one Canadian area code(403).

Summay;
Get a free 403 number at freephoneline.ca then setup to forward it to your number for free...
403 area code(Calgary Alberta) number and then have Google Voice use that number.

Google Voice number == 403 freephoneline.ca number ==your Canada phone number...

What is Google Voice?

There's a good chance that you really like Google and all they have to offer and are very interested in learning about anything new they come up with.
You've heard about their new service: Google Voice. You want to know more. What is it? How will it benefit you? How does the service work?

What is Google Voice?

Google voice is a telecommunications service that uses

...... Cont.

Google Voice in Canada

Before we begin, we should note that this tutorial assumes you already have a Google Voice invite. If not, it’s not that hard to find someone on the internet willing to let you take one off their hands for a few bucks or even for free. We should also note that MagicJack is offering a free trial right now so you really have no reason to avoid trying this out. Alright, here we go:

1. Plug in your MagicJack, install the software and get your US number
2. Activate your Google Voice account using your MagicJack’s phone number and pick yourself a snazzy new Google Voice number
3. Go to my.magicjack.com, enable Call Forwarding and have your MagicJack forward all calls to your Canadian cell phone number (or land line, if you still have one)

CALL ME widget located?

When you are logged into your Google Voice account, you go to settings and one of the options is to copy the code for the CALL ME widget. The CALL ME widget, when clicked, allows a user to key in their phone# and Google Voice connects the caller to you at the number you specified in your settings. logged into your Google Voice settings copy the code for the CALL ME widget I use it on my website - clients from North America can call me toll-free. Prospective clients that don't want to share their phone# don't have to. It can be anonymous.

Google Voice latency to POTS

Google Voice testing latency to POTS (plain old telephone system), GSM, CDMA and a VoIP provider, because I couldn't find much information other than conjecture about actual voice latency on these systems.

I used Audacity to do the tests, it's really easy to do if you have a mic and speakers. (I'd be interested to hear what others measure. Be sure to calibrate audacity so you don't include the latency of your sound card in the measurements.)

These tests measure the time it takes, for sound to enter one device and come out the other device. In other words, the one-way time it takes for your speech to reach your calling party (and vice versa). They say that just 40 or 50ms of latency is the point at which voice delay becomes noticeable.

Here are the results!

POTS to CDMA: 149ms

POTS to GSM: 162ms

CDMA to GSM: 291ms

POTS to Google Voice to CDMA: 279ms

POTS to VOIP: 326ms

CDMA to VOIP: 450ms

VOIP to GV to CDMA: 750ms

From these, I estimate POTS has a latency around just 10ms...extremely good, and as to be expected. Once you get on a cell-to-cell call, you have almost 300ms latency. At this point conversation starts to becomes more half-duplex than full-duplex; that is, talking over one another and waiting to speak, similar to a walkie-talkie.

Google Voice seems to be like a cell phone in terms of latency, so calling Landline -> GV -> Cell is similar to a cell-to-cell call. Cell to GV to cell should be something like 430ms, quite a bit of delay.

CDMA may be slightly better than GSM, not really significantly different.

VoIP is twice as worse than a cell phone, you'd be far better off using a cell phone with a home phone adapter like Xlink. I really tried hard to get the lowest lag on VoIP too, by using 0.010 ms packet size and lowest possible jitter buffer. Ping was 50ms to SIP/RTP servers.

Google Voice does 3 things, SMS, Voicemail, and phone calls. The other features are superb. But in my opinion, the added latency for phone calls is not worth it. Calls are delayed enough with cell phones; it doesn't make sense to add more frustration when making phone calls even for the convenience of a single number.

Google Support Discussion;

Basics: Call quality - what's the truth? 

Why is there a huge delay on my phone calls? 

Resources Pages

Google Voice
Provides USA telephone number that can be forward to your (home/cell) number (ie.free calls)
http://www.google.com/voice

freephoneline.ca
Provides FREE Canadian telephone number !!FOR LIFE!! that can be forward to your
http://www.freephoneline.ca

Magicjack

Gizmo5
http://gizmo5.com

IPKall
Provides USA telephone number that can be forward to your (home/cell) number (ie.free calls)
http://www.ipkall.com/
IPKall Signup
http://phone.ipkall.com/
* Took them 4 days to process the application.



If you need an American phone number try www.bueno.com it can be used
for voicemail as well.

www.bueno.com
Provides USA telephone number that can be forward to your (home/cell) number (ie.free calls)
http://www.bueno.com/