Comments on: Review: Google Voice

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:24:17 +0000

Anyone know if and when GV will be able to accomodate Extensions? I have 2 cell phones and 2 office numbers. The cells are no problem, each office requires a 4 digit extension. It would be nice even if I could use the main number and set it up to send people directly to voicemail. But I am not able to “verify” the direct number…Thanks!

By: Jacob

Jacob — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:23:10 +0000

Some corrections/changes:

As far as I can tell, there is no way to disable or enable Call Presentation per-device.

As others have said, you can now change your Google Voice number for $10.

If you create a contact for a phone number, any previously recorded call screening name is no longer used; GV will speak the contact’s name instead.

By: THOMAS H

THOMAS H — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 22:05:04 +0000

Nice review. One question I have is whether local callers dialing my GV number have to pay a long distance charge? I could not find the answer on GOOGLE’s site.
Thanx
THOMAS H

By: Mark Jones

Mark Jones — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:58:48 +0000

Google Voice Phone number changes for $10.

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/07/03/google-voice-will-let-you-change-your-phone-number-for-10/

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:00:40 +0000

Not sure how new this is, or whether it is available only to certain subscribers, but on my account, I CAN change my GV number (for a $10 fee). Unknown if this is a one-time only deal, or whether you can do it as often as you like (for $10 a pop, not that you would want to change it that often likely).

By: puck42's status on Sunday, 28-Jun-09 21:28:28 UTC - Identi.ca

puck42's status on Sunday, 28-Jun-09 21:28:28 UTC - Identi.ca — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:28:32 +0000

[...] Interesting review of Google Voice http://changelog.complete.org/archives/1079-review-google-voice [...]

By: John Goerzen

John Goerzen — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:39:25 +0000

I wouldn’t be so sure. First of all, many companies have more internal extensions than they have publicly-available numbers. That’s why you might have to dial a central number, then enter an extension. Of course, some might have DIDs (Direct Inward Dial numbers) for every extension, but you can’t assume that.

Secondly, you can only present caller ID from a corporate PBX when dialing out if you have the right equipment and technical integration with the phone company. For instance, you can present it on a PRI, but not if you have a bank of analog lines dealing with the phone company.

And finally, even if the technical capability and DIDs to support it are present, there are policy questions. If you have, say, a group of people doing tech support, do you want people you call to see the direct extension to someone’s individual desk, or to see the number that would get them in the queue? There are legitimate reasons to go either way, and different companies have different needs.

So I wouldn’t say that these corporate PBXs are broken. What you have is a picture of all sorts of different technical possibilities and business needs, leading to a very common situation.

Incidentally, I am a corporate PBX administrator :-)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:04:52 +0000

Strictly speaking, the corporate PBXs seem broken there: they should use distinct numbers (and ideally names, but at least numbers) in their caller ID. However, obviously Google Voice needs to work around that bug in PBXs, since the PBXs won’t get fixed.