Google Voice: Voicemail Tip
September 19th, 2010, 4:43pm by Mike
I’ve written many times before about Google Voice, but I’ve just discovered something I didn’t know: Google Voice can be set to handle your voicemail, even if you are not using a GV number as your main contact number. Why would you want to do that?
Here’s my use case:
I’m traveling to Europe with my AT&T iPhone, on which I’d like to receive emergency calls, but not calls from random people who don’t know I’m out of town. It’s not made clear on any website, but AT&T charges $1.29 per minute when roaming in Europe. While you’re not charged if you don’t answer incoming calls, you are charged at the $1.29/minute rate for the duration of any voice messages left, regardless of whether you listen to them or not. (Practical joke idea: bankrupt your friends by calling them when they’re in Europe! Imagine the fun when they get a thousands-of-dollars phone bill! Won’t that be hilarious?!?)
Here’s the fix:
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Set your iPhone’s voicemail to use GV voicemail. There’s a setting in the Phones tab of the Voice Settings, next to each eligible phone, saying “Activate Google Voicemail on this phone.” It’ll direct you to do the same thing as in this blog post.
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Set GV voicemail to forward transcripts of your calls by email.
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Check your email via computer or iPhone when in wifi coverage. Otherwise, keep your phone in airplane mode (and keep in mind that you can toggle wifi on while in airplane mode — activating airplane mode deactivates both the wifi and 3G radios, but the wifi radio can then be turned back on independently).
Following this plan, you’ll get notified of voicemails as often as you check your email (which for me, is often, especially when hotels and business locations increasingly have wifi). From the transcripts (which vary wildly in their accuracy, in my experience), you can at least make out the gist of the call, and decide whether it’s important enough to call back (and call back via Skype). The downsides: If your caller doesn’t leave a voicemail, you won’t see any notification of missed calls unless you log into Google Voice (which you can do via wifi from your mobile phone).
Of course, if you’re already using GV as your main number, this isn’t news, but for those of us who haven’t made the big switch for everyday calls, this is great.
September 19th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
wow. AT&T is scum. There’s absolutely no rational reason for that policy.
September 19th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
The rationale is that the calls ring through AT&T’s roaming partner, who doesn’t care if it’s AT&T’s voicemail that picks up. If AT&T is paying the roaming fee, they may feel it’s fair to pass that fee onto you. Would not surprise me if all carriers had the same policy (except as Sprint customers, we are unlikely to ever be so unlucky as to be in a region where we could even incur roaming fees). Of course, if Mike ends up putting a prepaid local SIM card in your phone, it’s a moot point.
September 19th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
That’s exactly their logic. The foreign SIM would be great, except I don’t think that GV works with foreign numbers — otherwise, just slap that SIM in and have people call your GV number! As it is, I couldn’t receive incoming calls without giving out my foreign number, and nobody in the US would want to call me because it would cost too much.
The other way it could work with a foreign SIM would be to get 3G unrestrictor and have people call me on Skype. Could probably even figure out a way to loop GV into that, too, so that calling my GV number would ring Skype. Oh, the possibilities!
September 20th, 2010 at 11:30 am
If you got a foreign SIM, you could set up call-forwarding from your AT&T number to your temp phone, presumably for 20 cents a pop. Wonder who pays the long distance then, you or the caller? Probably still cheaper than roaming. Anyway, it’s probably easiest to just ask people to text you in case of emergency. Skype-In of course is the most flexible, but I have no idea if pay-as-you-go data plans are reasonably priced.
September 20th, 2010 at 11:30 am
If you got a foreign SIM, you could set up call-forwarding from your AT&T number to your temp phone, presumably for 20 cents a pop. Wonder who pays the long distance then, you or the caller? Probably still cheaper than roaming. Anyway, it’s probably easiest to just ask people to text you in case of emergency. Skype-In of course is the most flexible, but I have no idea if pay-as-you-go data plans are reasonably priced.
September 20th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Dangit, tapped the comment button twice– that will probably get me flagged as a spammer!
September 20th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
I think forwarded calls are the same per-minute cost as just calling on AT&T, for the same reason you outlined for the voicemail case above. Not 100% sure, though.
And texting won’t work, either, unless I have my phone on (since they require the cell network and won’t go via wifi). So the best way may be to DM me on Twitter, and have me set up push notifications 😉 Or just email me.
September 22nd, 2010 at 12:46 am
Oh, I was talking about people texting you directly to your temporary local SIM’s phone number– international texting rates are pretty cheap (compared to international long distance rates).
Anyway, getting back to your original statement: “Google Voice can be set to handle your voicemail, even if you are not using a GV number as your main contact number. Why would you want to do that?” Here’s another use case– if you don’t have visual voicemail (like sprint users don’t), then you can set GV to intercept your normal voicemail and have some semblance of visual voicemail (emailed wav files and/or transcription).