Is it true?! Google voice on prepaid

[thisfnguy]

I heard google voice doesn't work on t-mobile prepaid..

 

[GopherDroid]

Conditional call forwarding does not; everything else does

 

[TURBOSPARTAN]

Conditional call forwarding does not; everything else does

What does that mean?

 

[greydarrah]

It means that most prepaid carriers wont let you forward voicemail to another number, but all you have to do is call the carrier and have them turn voicemail services off for your phone. Then, when it rings, since no carrier voice mail picks up, so if you don't answer the call, it goes to your Google Voice voicemail. Everything works perfectly. The only problem you could encounter with this setup is if you ever gave out the real phone number to your phone (the one your carrier assigns you), there would be no voicemail services for them to use if you failed to answer. However, giving someone your phone actual phone number defeats the whole purpose of you using GV.

 

[justinaz#AC]

The only GSM Prepaid i know that has call forwarding is ATT. It also works on Straight Talk since its an ATT mvno. I am currently on Straight Talk so i know conditional call forwarding works. This is the only reason why i am hesitant to move over to a T-Mobile prepaid. I love having visual voice mail from Google Voice.

** updated to the process to setup conditional call forwarding i used **

First, set up a Google Voice account. Configure it to not forward calls to any phone number. Record your voice greeting.

Second, open up your phone?s dialer and dial the following, replacing 1234567890 below with your actual Google Voice phone number?

*61*1234567890# (then hit send)

*62*1234567890# (then hit send)

*67*1234567890# (then hit send)

You should see a message appear on your phone after each time you press send. This will set up your AT&T account to take all calls when the phone is busy, when you decline a call, or when your phone is turned off or out of range and forward the call to your Google Voice number.

Since your Google Voice account is set not to forward your call, it will go straight to voicemail over there.

 

[skidmark]

It means that most prepaid carriers wont let you forward voicemail to another number, but all you have to do is call the carrier and have them turn voicemail services off for your phone. Then, when it rings, since no carrier voice mail picks up, so if you don't answer the call, it goes to your Google Voice voicemail. Everything works perfectly. The only problem you could encounter with this setup is if you ever gave out the real phone number to your phone (the one your carrier assigns you), there would be no voicemail services for them to use if you failed to answer. However, giving someone your phone actual phone number defeats the whole purpose of you using GV.

Thanks, just disable my voicemail so I can use Google Voice as my voice mail handler. This is exactly what I was trying to figure out.

 

[donrhummy]

Thanks, just disable my voicemail so I can use Google Voice as my voice mail handler. This is exactly what I was trying to figure out.

If your google voice number is not your mobile number than you don't even have to do that. When people call my google voice number, it never goes to my tmobile voicemail, but it does go to my phone (I'm forwarding it)

 

[skidmark]

If your google voice number is not your mobile number than you don't even have to do that. When people call my google voice number, it never goes to my tmobile voicemail, but it does go to my phone (I'm forwarding it)

For some reason when I tried calling from my office phone it went to my Tmo voice mail and not Google voice

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[cozzy123]

Im trying out my first month of Solavei prepaid and I have it set up so that when people call my cell phone number it forwards to google voice. Had to do this since solavei doesn't have a visual voicemail app yet.

Works the same way as tmobile post paid does. I did not have to call solavei to tell them to turn off my voicemail.

 

[runtmms]

Solavei (T- Mobile MVNO) supports conditional call forwarding. I use GV voicemail for both my GV number and my sim number. No hassle, no disabling anything.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Jack Farrington]

For some reason when I tried calling from my office phone it went to my Tmo voice mail and not Google voice

It depends which voicemail handler picks up first. The call comes in to Google Voice, which then forwards the call to T-Mobile. If Google Voice rolls to voicemail after 5 rings, but T-Mobile rolls to voicemail after 3 rings, T-Mobile would end up forwarding the call to its own voicemail service. Google Voice would detect this forward as an answer and would not forward to its own voicemail service.

This means it is actually very possible for you to call the same GV number several times, and each time get a different voicemail (GV vs T-Mobile) just depending on any latency in the call forwarding and which one rolled to voicemail first. To prevent this, you would have to either setup forwarding on T-Mobile (which is currently not possible for prepaid), or turn off T-Mobile voicemail completely.

 

[minnemike]

another thing to note, since GV is VOIP based, it sometimes just goes down and is not available (not sure why) - in this case your Tmo or ATT voicemail will receive the call if unanswered. THis occasionally happens to me, but not very often. So, my tmo voicemail kinda acts as a backup or your calls would go into outer space. For this reason, I have been weary of turning off the carrier's voicemail service.

 

[dustspot]

I am wondering if I can do the same thing and still use my carrier phone number. I can't get a new phone number since I have too many contacts with my original number. I am trying to set up google voice on my straight talk service using tmobile sim. Any suggestions?

 

[Crashdamage]

You can get a Google Voice number and keep your existing number. You do not have to port your number to GV, though you can if you prefer. In effect, getting a GV number gives your phone a second number, which can be very handy. I use the GV number for business or anyone else I don't want to give my 'real' number to. Only friends and family get my real number.

GV can handle visual voicemail for both numbers. You must have conditional call forwarding capability from your provider for it to work. Most prepaid services do not have it, but I believe ST does.

Android since v1.0. Linux user since 2001.