Anyone ported their personal cell to google voice? I have had a company phone and personal iPhone forever and recently thought about combining the two. I have read that it does work but does anyone have any personal experience? All texts and voice calls work? VM? Can you tell what line the incoming call is coming from?

It looks like it is a one time fee of $20 to port my personal number to google voice, get the free app for my work iPhone, and then I should be able to get my texts, voice calls, and voicemails in the app correct? Any downsides? No personal bill would be nice and not having to carry two phones would be nice.

 

^^ Google: We will own everything that is said on your google voice.

 

Fixed

 

Yes and hated it.

 

 

Really? Why? I mean it isn't the end of the world to have two phones and it is nice on the weekends but at the same time, one is better. One less thing to charge and one less thing to hold.

Damn, that move was quick!

 

I cant remember, but it didnt go to voicemail all the time, was confusing here and there and wasnt worth it in the end

 

I have a GV number but I did not port my cell over. I mainly use it when selling things on CL or eBay and it just forwards to my cell...

 

I recently started using GV but use another number so I can't help you with the porting question. Not much experience with the VM but I don't think you can get MMS.

 

Thanks Doom, porting doesn't seem bad and I believe you are correct on the MMS. I don't get a ton of pics so it doesn't bother me, I just would hate to port to google then hate it and have to port back to Verizon and get a new plan etc.

 

Maybe I am wrong but I believe you can simply set Gvoice to ring on your cell as a temporary "try-out." I use it like JuniorBean but also use it as a VOIP phone for when I am online on my computer.

I would see if there is a way to set up a free GVoice number and give it to one friend/relative who you speak to frequently. Confirgure the phone to receive that number and try it out that way and if you like it, port your actual number to gvoice, discard the free gvoice number and use your real one.

 

You could configure your personal cell to forward to your Google Voice number to try it out...but that would only be voice and not texts. I wonder if it's possible to setup text forwarding...perhaps there is an app out there that can do it.

 

I use GV as a throw away number and I don't know if there was an outage or something was acting up with my phone, but my GV stopped working for a week. Given Google's history with Reader and Gmail EAS support, I'm not going to rely on something they can pull the rug out anytime. Plus any app is never as good as native phone and message app.

 

So I went ahead and ported my personal number from Verizon to Google Voice and it went pretty smoothly. I have another month or so left on contract with my personal cell so I ported my number and 20 hours later, I requested a new number from Verizon through the website to keep service going without getting an ETF. Now I have my work number on my iPhone 5, personal number on GV with the app on my work cell, and a random number from verizon on my personal iPhone.

So far, I am really happy with it. I know people complain about having to open the app but in reality, you have to open the native phone app to dial out normally so opening the GV app and dialing out, to me, is the same. Port took 24 hours for voice and while everyone says text takes up to 3 days to port, mine seems to be working well.

MMS does not work and the google voice app does not support VOIP but the new GV mobile +3 app does have VOIP and costs $2.99. I may try it out of curiousity but the google app is pretty damn good. The dialer looks very simaliar to the native iPhone app with favorites but with a text and phone option at the dialer screen. GV texting can go right to your phone's inbox or in the app inbox as I have set it or both.

Voicemail was semi tricky to set up because I wanted my work voicemail and my google voice number to have a different vm message. The only way to do it seems to be call screening which basically pronounces your callers stored contact name when you pick up and asks you to dial '1' to answer. I don't love that but it will do for now.

Just thought I would update you all. I am incredibly happy to not only save $100 a month but have the two phones in one. Hopefully, google will update the app for iOS 7 and maybe get some MMS support.

 

^ Are you still using Google voice for your personal number? My new job gave me a phone and I don't want to carry around 2 phones.
The only feature I'm interested in is having it forward all calls from my personal number to my work phone.

 

Simple enough to do. GO to voice.google.com, click Settings (gear icon) in the top right. "Add another phone". Add in work cell. And then add your work number in


After you save, click the checkbox to "Forward calls to" the respective number

 

Sorry, missed this but I am. GV plus 3 has been going strong but for some reason, I don't seem to be getting MMS lately. Having two phone numbers in one iPhone, especially when the company is paying for the one, is a great thing.