I recently acquired an LG Optimus V through Virgin Mobile. My home is on the outskirts of good coverage, and it was the same with T-mobile, so my calls continually drop and I am now primarily using my cell phone in my home, so this is a huge problem. I have attempted to set this up using wi-fi on my phone, obtained a google voice account and phone number using a gmail account I don't use for any other purpose, made a call directly from my PC's browser using google mail, set it to forward calls to google chat, also set it on my phone to "do not use google voice to make any calls", I also purchased the GrooVe IP app and set that up to allow 3G/4G calling (if I want to use wi-fi, should this be UNCHECKED?) I actually just tested that theory by unchecking it and am still getting poor call quality. It only shows a wi-fi icon in my notification area now, not the 3G icon.
Okay... so I *am* able to make and receive calls, albeit a little echoing which has seemed to get better after a little tweaking of the Microphone Gain (***side note*** it would be nice to be able to tweak these settings while on a call to see if it's actually working). However, my calls still continue to get dropped just as if I were not using my wi-fi to connect, and my wi-fi connection is very strong in my home (the icon on my phone shows a full signal), no problem hooking up multiple laptops to it and using them 100 foot away, but my calls are getting dropped unless I walk outside the house.
Do you have any suggestions? Maybe I'm missing a step... it's a new phone, and this is a new approach to making phone calls for me forsure. I did notice that the only minutes being used are when people call my cell phone number, so I will be giving them my google voice phone number to call from now on. None of the recent calls I make are counting toward my mobile minutes with Virgin Mobile, so that is VERY cool... as it means I will more than likely be able to drop down to the 300 minute plan.
I'd love to get this to work and get me a good signal using wi-fi. Purchasing a repeater for my home is not a viable, financial option at this time.
Thank you for any help you can offer! If I get it to work, I will give you 5 stars and a rave review forsure!
~Heidi