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As you may or may not have previously read, I intend to be one of the brave few who are going to port their mobile number to Google Voice to allow it to be my primary method of managing texts and voicemail, and such. And because I want my mobile number that I have had FOR YEARS to be MINE and no longer married to a carrier.
I have been messing around with the settings because I like to get things settled well in advance. I am not planning on porting the number or getting new mobile phone for around a month (though hopefully sooner!). But I want to be absolutely sure that I am going to do this.
Here are the current issues I have had in making sure it's set up to my preferences and if I've been unable to resolve them or not:
In my previous use of Google Voice, I was annoyed by the announcement of the call and the fact that I couldn't see the caller ID of the person calling that it showed my number as caller ID. I don't recall if these are default settings or if I turned on the announcement thing because of the caller ID thing. HOWEVER, both of those settings were able to be changed.
Also, as of now, Google Voice does not support MMS, I don't quite understand why the MMS messages just fall off into the ether rather than having it automatically forward to the email attached to Voice. From the discussion in the help forum, most other people are of this same opinion. So at first I will have to let people know to send pictures to my email instead of phone number, which it will be basically the same thing to me on my side, since it's to be an Android phone, and that'll be the gmail attached to it.
My last issue, thus far (I have ended up posting to the help forum and hopefully I'll get a reply), for which I've been through the settings and read through the forum/FAQ and either it's not supported or I'm a dumb. I want a middle option to block or ring through, to be set specific to a number. I want to be able to tell it "when this number calls, send straight to voicemail, do not ring through". I can only find block.
My last bitch is a provider bitch. I will be staying with T-mobile even though I'm taking my number away from them. The annoying thing is that even though I will not be using their system for text messages, that there's no way to remove it in a "make it cheaper" fashion.
I could leave the family plan and get an individual plan that only has call/data. But that's more expensive than staying IN the family plan. The unlimited sms/mms is family wide, while the unlimited data is an individual line charge. Because of this, and depending on how/if T-mo changes with the AT&T merger, I may *gasp* actually leave T-Mo after this last contract and go with a local carrier that can give me voice+unlimited data for cheap.
So, to sum up, I did have some second thoughts about the port to Google, but after messing around with it more, today, I have decided that the two issues (no mms, and apparently not enough individual call handling settings) are still worth it. Mainly because Google has a pretty good reputation for implementing changes/improvements requested by their users. And the MMS issue seems like it's something that's going to not go very long without a resolution if they're determined to get people to port.
I have been messing around with the settings because I like to get things settled well in advance. I am not planning on porting the number or getting new mobile phone for around a month (though hopefully sooner!). But I want to be absolutely sure that I am going to do this.
Here are the current issues I have had in making sure it's set up to my preferences and if I've been unable to resolve them or not:
In my previous use of Google Voice, I was annoyed by the announcement of the call and the fact that I couldn't see the caller ID of the person calling that it showed my number as caller ID. I don't recall if these are default settings or if I turned on the announcement thing because of the caller ID thing. HOWEVER, both of those settings were able to be changed.
Also, as of now, Google Voice does not support MMS, I don't quite understand why the MMS messages just fall off into the ether rather than having it automatically forward to the email attached to Voice. From the discussion in the help forum, most other people are of this same opinion. So at first I will have to let people know to send pictures to my email instead of phone number, which it will be basically the same thing to me on my side, since it's to be an Android phone, and that'll be the gmail attached to it.
My last issue, thus far (I have ended up posting to the help forum and hopefully I'll get a reply), for which I've been through the settings and read through the forum/FAQ and either it's not supported or I'm a dumb. I want a middle option to block or ring through, to be set specific to a number. I want to be able to tell it "when this number calls, send straight to voicemail, do not ring through". I can only find block.
My last bitch is a provider bitch. I will be staying with T-mobile even though I'm taking my number away from them. The annoying thing is that even though I will not be using their system for text messages, that there's no way to remove it in a "make it cheaper" fashion.
I could leave the family plan and get an individual plan that only has call/data. But that's more expensive than staying IN the family plan. The unlimited sms/mms is family wide, while the unlimited data is an individual line charge. Because of this, and depending on how/if T-mo changes with the AT&T merger, I may *gasp* actually leave T-Mo after this last contract and go with a local carrier that can give me voice+unlimited data for cheap.
So, to sum up, I did have some second thoughts about the port to Google, but after messing around with it more, today, I have decided that the two issues (no mms, and apparently not enough individual call handling settings) are still worth it. Mainly because Google has a pretty good reputation for implementing changes/improvements requested by their users. And the MMS issue seems like it's something that's going to not go very long without a resolution if they're determined to get people to port.
