Verizon Galaxy S8 For the love of visual voicemail & QWERTY typing

[alf_dart]

About 10 years ago, I activated my first Google Voice phone number, and took the dive. Since then, I've made a sincere effort to use it as a primary phone number for pretty much everything. Lately, I've begun to regret the latency issues that are inherent to a VOIP service, and I'm reconsidering using Verizon Wireless's native services instead. What should I do?

First, let me highlight my favorite Google Voice features:

1. Visual voicemail

When Google introduced its voicemail transcription services, I was pretty wowed. When I get a call at work, one of the most important things for me to be able to do is to silently bump it to voicemail without answering. The next best thing is to be able to simply glance at my phone five minutes later and see a relatively accurate translation of the important things I missed. Yup, that's critical.

2. Composing SMS texts on my computer, not my phone

I spend a lot of time texting on my smartphone; Who doesn't? But, I'm a typist. I'm a gen X'er who was raised with an Amiga and a IIGS in the den. So, when I sit down at my computer, I want to send my SMS's in style. Google Voice allows me to use my personal computer to manage the steady flow of SMS's that define my workday. And, to type on a full-size keyboard, not a tiny little capacitive screen!!

3. Google services integration

Google, in this country anyway, still seems to have a relative monopoly on Internet search services. I don't mind playing the field with Bing, and others, but I'm not masochistic about it. As long as Google's willing to offer me 15GB free storage on the cloud, I'll keep encrypting my files and tossing them up there; If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'm just a humble consumer here, folks.

That's it.

I'm also a long time Verizon Wireless customer, and wouldn't readily trade their reliability (particularly in rural areas) for a less expensive service, unless I had to. But sometimes I regret that I can't take advantage of quick connection times, simply to answer a direct call from my boss.

THERAPY TRANSCRIPT
ME: "I remember when I first switched. I got an unexpected call from corporate, and was asked why it took me so long to pick up my phone."
HIM/HER: "Quit whining and switch to Verizon."
ME: "I HAVE Verizon, but I use Google Voice, and the call latency is higher."
HIM/HER: *thought bubble* "LOSER"

Hmmm, what to do....

Thanks for your help!

Sincerely,
alf_dart (Member & contributor since 2012 )

 

[Umass021]

Well one thing for the SMS if you use Android messages which is Google's stock messaging program you can also use it on your computer now. So you can get your messages and type back through the computer. Hope that helps one of your issues. The app can be found in the play store.

 

[alf_dart]

@Umass021 Thanks, I did not realize that Android's stock Messages app offered that feature! That does solve one of my problems.

In that scenario, I could:

1. Terminate Google Voice phone number in favor of Verizon Wireless number
2. Use Verizon Wireless's native Android service for voicemail
3. Use Google Messages app for SMS services, so that I can also text using a conventional keyboard

My objection to this scenario is that Verizon Wireless's visual voicemail services are a premium feature ($2.99/mo, and I don't know how well they work). Alternately, I would be willing to sacrifice voicemail transcription services, but I need to be able to access a call/voicemail log from a browser window on a desktop computer of some sort, just like with Google Voice.

 

[Umass021]

Unfortunately I've never used visual voicemail so I'm not sure how it works.

 

[Umass021]

How come you can't use the Google voice number anymore?

 

[alf_dart]

Visual voicemail is a pretty straightforward voice messaging feature, really. It just allows you to see a transcript of every message that you receive in the form of a snippet, in a list on your device. If you haven't tried Google Voice's visual voicemail service, you should absolutely give it a try. I am optimistic that someone on this forum has some experience with Verizon's visual voicemail, so I can gauge whether it's worth paying for or not.

 

[alf_dart]

It's not that I can't use the Google Voice number anymore, it's that latency is sometimes very high. Best as I can tell, it's dependent more on overall internet traffic, than carrier traffic in my immediate geographic area. So if it's the middle of the day (during peak Internet usage hours) and someone is trying to reach me, the phone may ring seven or eight times on their end, while I only hear one or two rings before I pick up. I've had complaints that it seems unprofessional, because I should be paying closer attention to my phone, but there's really nothing I can do about it in that moment.

 

[alf_dart]

Years ago I paid RingCentral (a highly rated commercial enterprise in direct competition with Google's voice services) for a trial membership just so I could send some conventional faxes from my home computer - I mean, who owns a fax machine anymore, really. They were very unhappy when I cancelled my trial membership. Maybe it's time to ante up and go back to being a commercial VOIP customer. I'm sincerely skeptical however that latency would be any better than with Google's free service. Thoughts?

 

[alf_dart]

Maybe there is another forum on AndroidCentral.com where it would make more sense to post on this topic? If a moderator would be kind enough to move this thread to one of the Google Services subtopic forums (if that's possible), maybe it would get more replies? Otherwise I may just restart the thread there, but I don't like being redundant. Thanks.