Google Voice/Google Talk/VOIP?s

Hey chaps. As some of you may remember from my 3G/Wifi post last week, I am doing a serious fact finding mission about the electronic communications in our household. You may also remember my post about porting the home number to Tmobile pre-paid and that works well too though I doubt we are going to make it one full year with the $100 prepaid card. The wife and girls are still adjusting to using only when absolutely necessary. Another thought about the wifi phones was using an IM/VOIP app on the device to allow non cellular use via my home wireless network.

So here is my next train of thought. Eventually I would love to port the number over to some sort of VOIP service with and analogue telephone adapter (ATA) that would all me to use the great Panasonic cordless set I have. I wanted to use Gizmo5 but that has been bought out by Google and will be added to the Google voice department. In the meantime the service is not available. Would someone hazard a guess as to how Google will eventually integrate that service with their Voice division? If I read things correctly, Voice is service that allows migration of all your devices to one call in number and Talk is like MSN Messenger, AIM. etc. Where does that leave Gizmo5 or Skype or whatever? What really is the difference between VOIP "phone" service as opposed to talking live through an instant messenger client? As you can clearly see, I am eventually heading toward one ruddy number to give out for everything but would certainly like to have a good map of how to get there.

Regards, Todd

Phog Allen said:

Would someone hazard a guess as to how Google will eventually integrate that service with their Voice division? If I read things correctly, Voice is service that allows migration of all your devices to one call in number and Talk is like MSN Messenger, AIM. etc. Where does that leave Gizmo5 or Skype or whatever? What really is the difference between VOIP "phone" service as opposed to talking live through an instant messenger client? As you can clearly see, I am eventually heading toward one ruddy number to give out for everything but would certainly like to have a good map of how to get there.

Regards, Todd

Click to expand...

The only difference may be that there may not be inter-IM app calls or access to the PSTN.

You may want to take a look at something like "PBX in a Flash" by Ward Mundy @ nerdvittles.com. It really is pretty crazy what you can do with some old hardware, a couple of VOIP accounts, and small investment in time. In addition, many VOIP companies laready have PBX style features, like call hunt, multi-call, and a whole host of other things.

You may want to check this article out on Slashdot http://ask.slashdot.org/story/10/06/27/217244/Best-Phone-For-a-Wi-Fi-Only-Location

it is someone asking what is a good wi-fi only phone that they could use in an area that has little to no cellular access.

Some of the recommendations for a short list are

Ipod Touch (3G) with mic and head set with VOIP app.
Google Android Phone with a sipdroid client on it
Nokia phone with S60 OS and VOIP client.

I guess Belkin also has a wi-fi phone but all the reviews I have seen suck.

Also if you are going the PBX route there use to be a app called Astericks that was a PBX app that ran under Linux. Not sure if it is still in development or if maybe a new app has taken over as it has been a while since I have tinkered with it.

Just so you know...companies like Skype and Vonage are by definition VoIP services, but they are suject to issues beyond your control.

I am NOT saying they are bad services...but this...

Any service on the internet that is not offered by your actual provider (Comcast, Time Warner, etc.) is going to be a "best effort" service. The fewer people on the internet in your area the better. The more people on the internet in your area increases the potential for errors in other services. Cable companies assign priorities to their services, so a phone call through their VoIP modem gets a higher priority than a packet request for a web site. The term is "Quality of Service" or QoS (imagine a 911 call slowed down or droppeed because of an online gamer in the area).

Most times you probably wouldn't be aware of all this, but it is something to keep in mind, as a potential issue.

I have no knowledge of the Google stuff, but if it does phone and runs on the internet I would think it could be subject to the same issues, too.

Geeno (a 30-year cable TV vetran)

Thanks for the responses. This will be a slow process for us. My main goal in keeping our old home phone number around is convenience. I just don't want to have to go through the hassle of updating all our accounts AND the irritation of going through the do not call registration again. We pretty well have the old number weeded down to friends, charities, and the occasional political call. I can tell you people change numbers so often you wind up getting calls for prior users FOREVER if you aren't lucky. We have had our current number for nearly fifteen years. For the first YEAR after we obtained it we received calls DAILY for "Jimmy". We told them over and over it wasn't his number, etc. If finally dawned on us after a month or so that it was bill collectors and people he owed money. I call Southwestern Bell and asked about changing the number. Response? Sure we can, and you will probably have the same issues with the next one because people with bad credit histories change their numbers all the time. Ugh. So we persevered and after two years or so the calls slowly stopped. But I will be hanged if an insurance salesman did not call me in 2009 looking for the same guy! He just wanted to sell insurance to him. When I told him we had the number all those years he then asked me if I wanted to buy insurance. So you can see why the idea of a number that is essentially yours for life would be GREAT. The collection agencies stop calling for deadbeats. Sales calls and other aggravations don't stop until you've been in he do not call list for awhile. As an aside, that was the best decision we could make. The sales calls have dwindled to nothing.

I have heard of Asterisks or whatever it is called. It looks like a great program for Linux and I may build a small server for it someday. My thoughts with Google Talk or Skype or whoever is to have something web based that would work through and ata to allow use of my Panasonic handsets. Finding unlocked ata is worse than finding decent unlocked GSM phones over the counter. Most are locked to Vonage and there are a few Skype models out there which is no issue if I go with Skype. My main interest in this is keeping my old number and NOT spending thirty or forty dollars per month on a bill for something only used for business and the occasional local call. The Tmobile prepaid is a darned good option but if we wind up using two of the $100 cards this year then we are climbing back up to nearly the twenty dollar per month average costs. More than I want. The Skpe/VOIP services can come in much lower and to boot, you usually get a whale of a deal on any international calls you make. I was thinking Google's Talk and Voice (along with whatever they call Gizmo5 when it reappears) since most of that stuff is open source and should have a better edge at adaptability going forward. Please, anyone who would like to offer an opinion do so. I am wide open on this. Particularly for any wifi options. BTW, I get it about broadband priorities. My ATT uVerse is 12mbs dedicated bandwidth so I think I have it covered okay.

Regards, Todd

i use google talk and voice on android. love it. have sipdroid and sipagent they work okay with the right codecs...

Setting up asterisk via that PBIAF is easy and so is getting unlocked ATAs. there is a module for skype and talk/voice if i remember correctly...
best forum is DSLreports voip .. I have about 7 unlocked atas (one for each room) so they are very easy to find.... try looking for a Zoom FXO/FXS...

you can set it up (test or production) in a virtual computer to try it out... Asterisk was what made it all fit together at my house.... and outside of it if you have free cell to home calling....

I recently went through a similar exercise. Where I started using Google Voice as my primary number which fronts my actual mobile and land line (voip) service. I wanted to ditch the voip service due to cost and low usage, but keep the phone number which I had for years. So I looked around for a service that supported inbound number porting, and the cheapest service was around $12-14/month IIRC. I ended up just canceling the voip service without porting as there would be some delay (as much as 2 months) as well as the monthly cost. Skype and MagicJack offer even cheaper voip service, but do not support porting your existing phone number over to their service. As a basic phone service, both get good reviews but do require you to keep a PC up and running and competing with whatever else you have running.

I read somewhere unofficially that Gizmo5 support was coming in the future, but there were some issues with making it run completely within the browser. That their business strategy is to have Gizmo running on Chrome and not be a standalone application. I don't know if there is truth to that story, but Gizmo would be a nice addition to Google Voice, making it a functional service without relying on another service.