Google Voice
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After the great tales of Doug and Android/Nexus, and seeing sigs w/ GV numbers .. I thought I'd ask for those of us (not me yet) who use GV could give us a glimpse into that future.
Just as Doug has taken the phone to its logical conclusion: "Its the internet stupid" sort of thing .. maybe we all ought to think about GV and internet-only (data-only) services.
In other words .. how close _are_ we to data-only services for phone, TV, etc?
I finally switched from DSL to Cable, urged on by the idea of data-only TV, landline and so on (thanks Gil). Speed test (http://www.speedtest.net/) showed seriously shocking differences between DSD & Cable:
ping ms down Mbps up Mbps DSL: 69 1.47 0.60
Cable: 43 35.32 5.73 So what _are_ our experiences with GV? Can we cut that cord?
-- Owen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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It occurs to me that some of us may not have tried speed test. I always get a grin when I see it pissing all over our network! Burning man? Sure. Pissing man? Hmm..
 -- Owen On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 9:43 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: After the great tales of Doug and Android/Nexus, and seeing sigs w/ GV numbers .. I thought I'd ask for those of us (not me yet) who use GV could give us a glimpse into that future. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
I use Google voice as my main number. When I'm at my desktop in the office, I use the Google Chrome talk plugin and phone dialer app as my phone, both for incoming & outgoing. I have Google voice set up to ring other phones, like my cell, so I give out my Google voice number as my mobile. This is handy for when I happen to be somewhere where I don't have enough bandwidth to use the GrooveIP voip Android app to receive calls; the regular cell voice line rings me. Google voice is not perfect, but it's pretty damn good. Now that I've said something good about Google, let me reiterate that the part of Google that is responsible for the Nexus 4, and for Android for the Nexus are a lying bunch of bastards. There are thousands of complaints about broken wifi and bluetooth on the Nexus 4, but if you were to call the Google toll-free Device Support number right now, they'd still tell you that "There are no known issues with the Nexus 4."
Being evil. --Doug --Doug On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 9:43 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: After the great tales of Doug and Android/Nexus, and seeing sigs w/ GV numbers .. I thought I'd ask for those of us (not me yet) who use GV could give us a glimpse into that future.
Doug Roberts
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Doug: thanks, very clear.
Couple of questions:
- Is it pretty easy to setup and use?
- If you give up your landline, can you transfer it to GV so you don't loose it? - How comfortable are you that Google will continue the service?
-- Owen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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Hey Owen, - GV is very easy to use, there is a talk plugin for the Chrome browser (implied: you have to use the Chrome browser) which provides a nice little phone dialer app. What I like about the app is that it is integrated with your Google contacts, so looking up somebody's number is slick. Also, the calls are crystal clear. Sometimes, rarely, a call will drop, but not often enough to be a major issue.
- For the cell phone there is the GrooveIP Google voice Android app. I don't know if there is an IOS equivalent. - Don't know about transferring your landline number. Maybe you can do that.
- I don't trust Google to not fuck this up. They are a huge dysfunctional rich-kid bully. Spoiled, too. Arrogant, as well. And tone deaf to the concept of "customer" (referring now to their paying customers, as compared to people how use their free stuff, although they seem pretty tone deaf to folks using their free stuff as well.)
--Doug On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 10:34 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: Doug: thanks, very clear.
Doug Roberts
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Google Voice is living on borrowed time. If the Guardian's analysis is correct (link), we could have expected Google to kill it off about two weeks ago on 3/9/2013.
But until they do, I'll carry on using it for my 2¢ per minute calls to the UK. —R ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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Bingo: this was my concern, that GV would go the way of Reader.
But if it's easy to transfer to another VoIP service, then having Google abandon GV would be less a blow, but certainly a hassle.
-- Owen
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 11:25 AM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:
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One could argue that Google Voice has become a core service, like email, from which they reap information harvested from its users. I'd surprised if it were not a growing service, given the continued growth of the mobile industry. --Doug On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 11:33 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: Bingo: this was my concern, that GV would go the way of Reader.
Doug Roberts
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Owen, I'm looking at doing something similar. Evidently you have to transfer your land line to a cell # first, then you can transfer that to GV. Go figure. -Jim
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In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2
The free US long distance service associated with Google Voice is a "bonus feature" that's been extended each year, but could go to a paid model any year now. -- rec --
On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 11:53 AM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote:
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That's what I'd expect as well. It is such a useful service that even cheapskates like me would pay for it. But don't tell those bastards at Google I said so. --Doug On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 12:00 PM, Roger Critchlow <[hidden email]> wrote:
Doug Roberts
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In reply to this post by Robert Holmes-3
I'm not a statistician but shouldn't the analysis include all of the google services, not just the ones that have been canceled? Or would it be more valid to say, "If they are going to cancel it, GV is living on borrowed time?"
--joshua On Mar 22, 2013, at 11:25 AM, Robert Holmes <[hidden email]> wrote:
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In reply to this post by Douglas Roberts-2
I moved my business number to GV over a
year ago... it rings through to my cell unless my cell is off, out
of range or I deliberately stop forwarding it temporarily. It
instead then fields my voicemail which it (attempts to) transcribe
into both e-mail and text for my cell.
My house is in uber-marginal cell range and even with the Wilson Electronics repeater I set up, sometimes (atmospheric conditions, cell tower fluctuations, semis on the highway between me and the cell tower?) I only get enough signal for the phone to ring and/or text messages to sneak in/out but can't answer or call out effectively. (too) many of my driving areas are also marginal (as Guerin at least can attest) so a lot of my cell calls are a parody of "can you hear me now?". This mostly works for me as I *rarely* want to talk to anyone real-time anyway... I'd rather get the indication they had called, maybe even field their question/statement and then e-mail, text or (occasionally) call them back with an answer or a followup. Most of my family, friends, colleagues *also* prefer e-mail/text to phone. I have 2-3 people who I know I can call and they will pick up (albeit after screening caller ID), depending on the time of day... these are in fact the few people I actually *want* to talk to real time. For these calls I make sure I am somewhere with good cell coverage. Awkward since that doesn't include *home*. I don't use GV to answer or call out... I'm not sure why, I guess because I was already used to using Skype for this which is somewhere between free and cheap. I used Skype very effectively for international calling for 3 weeks this summer while I was in Europe... as long as I had good WiFi I was amazed at the ease/quality... I think I spent less than $20 on Skype charges the entire time... the only thing they couldn't fix was time-zone skew... oh well! I have used Skype (and Viber) to call out on my mobile as well, but generally if I have the WiFi to do that I also have the GSM and on an unlimited voice/text plan that is just fine. The biggest problem I have with this setup is that when *calling* people there is no way to make the caller ID reflect my GV number, but rather whatever cell number I have at the time. I'm on my second one since I switched (juggling T-mo against ATT) and it is confusing to some people who don't recognize my new(er) number yet... but as I expect with them, I just leave a message or shoot them a txt and wait for them to get back to ME, possibly on another band. We are definitely in a communication "inversion" right now with things changing chaotically or at least dramatically all the time. Neither of my daughters has had a land line in years, my mother is now on a cell phone, my wife doesn't answer *any* phones anyway, and I dropped *my* office landline a while back then my home landline just a few months ago. If GV goes away, I'm not precisely sure what I will do in response... I haven't surveyed the options for my style of use. It is the centralized routing, voicemail and transcription that I enjoy. And I'm ashamed to admit, the price... free for basic services very cheap for the few calls I make out from it. My Calvanist background makes me feel that I shouldn't expect anything for free and I should certainly not bitch about it if it isn't up to my expectation (see Gift Horse) and should expect there to be a hidden hook (think Google mining/assembling my personal information and using/selling it) somewhere. - Steve
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