Use Your Cell Number With Google Voice Thanks To A New Mashup
Posted on 27 October 2009, at 8:40 am, by Dan Cohen
Larry is on duty today but that doesn’t mean he isn’t keeping his eye on things. He just emailed me with great news… Google Voice now has its own mashup that allows you to use thew service without having to give everyone a new number. It is an awesome new mashup, and I for one am thrilled.
Let me explain…
Until now you had one of two choices if you were using Google Voice. Either you gave everyone your new number, or you used the mashup offered by Skydeck to send calls that come into your cell phone to your Google Voice number assuming you don’t initially pick up. It wasn’t a great system but it did work.
Now Google has gone and done what Skydeck had, but with one huge difference… the mashup is offered from within the Google Voice system.
Simply go to Settings, then Phones. Next to your cell phone there is now the option to send voicemail directly to your Google Voice number.
Follow the simple prompts
and… that’s it.
Now when a call comes to your cell phone that is the only phone that will ring. BUT, if you do not answer the phone, the voicemail system will redirect your call to… your Google Voice number. Once it does, the other numbers on your Google Voice account will ring.
If you don’t pick up any of them the call goes to voicemail… only now it goes to Google Voice’s voicemail, is transcribed and, depending on the settings you chose, emailed or texted to you.
It…is…awesome!
Here is a quick video explaining the process.
You can read all about it over on the Official Google Blog.
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October 27th, 2009 at 9:25 am
One step closer to true number porting…
I can’t wait until Google lets you port your number to GV. I’ve had a boston-based cell phone for years because that’s the number everyone knew. And AT&T wouldn’t let me set up any sort of second line/voicemail/forwarding system for even a few weeks to make the transition to a new, local number easier.
So now I am hoping to swing my 617 number to GV and keep it forever, and then get a local number for my “offical” cell phone. Then I can finally stop paying MA sales tax on my cell phone every month…
October 27th, 2009 at 11:14 am
I like it, but I ran into an issue. I just set it up, and when I called, it took something like 8 rings before it went to the voicemail. Four were the carrier, and then four were different, aka the Google Voice number. Could be a setting that I need to adjust somewhere, but it’s definitely annoying.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
When I first read the news this morning about Google Voice using a non-Google number, I was a bit let down. I was hoping this was the full number porting that we have all been waiting for. However, I think that Dan’s points accurately reflect why this is good. Until you get everyone moved to using your new Google Voice number (or full porting is available), you still had to have your voicemail on your other phones available only on those devices, or do weird “hacks” in Google Voice to send certain numbers directly to voicemail.
Now, with this new feature, I have forwarded all of my mobile numbers directly into Google Voice so I only have one voicemail inbox to check and all of my voicemail messages transcribed for me – including ones not sent to Google Voice directly.
It’s too bad that you cannot access SMS messages the same way, but unfortunately there is no way to “forward” those as a standard phone feature (unlike the call forward when unavailable feature voice calls use). But it’s a good first start.
This is enough to make me move totally to my Google Voice number as a primary number. Very happy to see this feature.