Google Voice guide

This guide contains a complete end-to-end update of our 2013 Google Voice guide, chock full of new ideas, completely new articles, and amazing tips.

You'll learn how to port your landline to Google Voice, how to set up phone handsets, how to integrate Google Voice into your iPhone and Android experience, how to set up a multi-line office, how to get the most out of using Google Voice and SMS, and even how to use Google Voice effectively and safely in your car, and lots more.

So brew up a cup of coffee or your favorite tea, grab a few snacks, and prepare to discover how plain 'ol phone calls are about to be transformed into

Google Voice

What is Google Voice?

Google Voice is a free service open to United States residents that allows them to set up one phone number that automatically forwards to all of their phones. Subscribers can take advantage of a number of advanced features, such as voicemail services and text message forwarding. Since Google Voice numbers are not tied to a particular device, subscribers never have to worry about porting or moving their phone numbers.

When you combine your Google Voice account with your Ooma Telo, you give yourself all of the advantages of a Google Voice account with the convenience of full integration into your home phone. Google Voice Extensions gives you easy access to the features you love from Google Voice, by allowing you to bypass many of Google's menus.

What do I need to get started with Google Voice integration?

Your Ooma Telo can integrate seamlessly with your Google Voice account using an Ooma feature called Google Voice Extensions. With Google Voice

Google Voice voicemail set up

Google Voice voicemail set up How to Activate Google Voice voicemail on your Phone
1. Log in to the Google Voice website & click Settings in the top right corner.
2. Locate the phone you wish to activate voicemail for & click Activate Google voicemail on this phone.
3. On your HTC Aria, dial *004*xxx-xxx-xxxx# (where xxx-xxx-xxxx is your Google Voice phone number) & press Call.
4. A forwarding confirmation will be displayed on your screen.
5. On the Google Voice website, click Done.

Configure voicemail transcriptions and delivery

1. Log in to the Google Voice website & click Settings in the top right corner.
2. Click on the Voicemail & SMS tab.
3. Next to "Voicemail Notifications", check the box next to Email the message to & select an email address to receive your voicemail transcriptions via email.
4. Beneath "Send a text (SMS) message to", check the box next to each cell phone on which you want to receive SMS voicemail transcriptions.
5. Next to Voicemail Transcripts, check the box next to Transcribe Voicemails.
6. Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the screen. That's it! Google Voice will now replace your AT&T voicemail, and it will deliver transcriptions of each message via email or SMS. If at any point you wish to deactivate Google Voice voicemail, simply dial #002# on your HTC Aria & press Call. This will deactivate all call forwarding & the HTC Aria will use the standard voicemail system once again

Magicjack

Set up Google Voice in Canada – Free Long Distance

Google Voice Overview

Google Voice is one of the greatest innovations in telephony. I am a huge fan of it and I have used it to pretty much nullify my phone bills, or at least drastically reduce them. Google Voice fixes many of the annoyances that people have with telephones now, as well as helps to use current communication technology to connect us at a very low price.

Some of the things I hate doing is checking my voicemail through the phone system and monitoring how many text messages or daytime minutes I have left. I particularly hate not knowing if a call is going to cost me long distance charges or not. I’ll show you how to use some of Google Voice’s features to reduce your telephone costs in Canada and in the US including getting free long distance in Canada (even from your cell phone) and getting a telephone line at home through VOIP (data).
This post will be about how to set up your Google Voice account, even when you are not in the US.

Some of my favorite features of Google Voice are:

    Free Long Distance calling

Google Voice on Your iPhone or Android Smartphone

How to Use Google Voice on Your iPhone or Android Smartphone

Google Voice allows you to make phone calls using a Google Voice number, as well as to send and receive free text messages, and to manage your voicemail as if it were just another part of your email. If you already have a Google Voice number (or if you would like one), Google Voice is a useful app to own. Here's how to set it up on your smartphone or tablet.

Step 1: Install Google Voice

Google Voice is a free app. Open your device's native app store and search for Google Voice, or go to the appropriate Web-based store page to grab and install Google Voice for Android or Google Voice for iOS.

Google Voice is supported on most Android and iOS devices, including tablets. On Apple devices, Google Voice requires iOS 3.0 or later.
Step 2: Set Up Google Voice

Before you start using Google Voice, you must have

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

What is Google Voice?

Google voice is a telecommunications service that uses software technology to improve the process of managing the way you receive calls. If your mother wants to give you a call she has to figure out you where you are at the time she is calling. Are you at work, at home, or out on the road? With Google Voice a caller can reach all three of those numbers -- home, work, and cell -- simultaneously by calling a single number -- the Google Voice number.

FREE USA calling and It is 1 cent per minute Canadian calling.
You can make international calls too.
You get 1$ free credit when switching over.

iPhone SIP apps

iPhone SIP apps

he iPhone SIP apps

Fring
free from the AppleApp Store (cydia)
fring @ 4shared.com

Magicjack

Gizmo5
free from the AppleApp Store (cydia)

GV mobile
GVmobile @ 4shared.com
Google Voice for mobile
http://m.google.com/voice


Siphon
free from the AppleApp Store (cydia)

Sipphone
free from the AppleApp Store (cydia)

Skype
free from the AppleApp Store (cydia)

*** .IPA files may only work on Unlocked/Jailbroken iphones.

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/