Answered
I have 2 legacy phone lines (Comcast/Sprint) that I am contemplating porting over to Google Voice and reconfiguring for service with an Obihai 202 and Ting. To test out Ting service, I activated an old 3G phone and things look great so far.
One conceptual question I have is after porting the two legacy numbers to GV, will I need to re-configure the two devices previously associated with these numbers with new device numbers? It seems like this would be necessary so that the network could differentiate routing for the the devices from the GV 'gateway'.
Has anyone tried this combination of Obihai VOIP and Ting service? Thanks for any assistance.
Comments
You don't need to obtain any other numbers.
I use a Google Voice number with an Obihai at my house and ported my number from Sprint to Ting. The Sprint number will stay with your cell phone and be with Ting. Under Google Voice settings you can configure it to ring your Cell phone number (if you want) and at the same time ring your Phones at your house (via Obihai). If you have any questions ask away.
Thanks for your response, Chris. I do have a related question.
Do you know whether Ting can be used as an intermediate step in porting a Comcast landline to Google Voice?
I understand that phone numbers registered with Comcast are not eligible for direct porting to GV. Several published "step-by-step" porting procedures have used AT&T disposable prepaid phones as an intermediate port into a cell carrier that can be ported to GV. Do you know if Ting can be used as well? Thanks.
The only think I have read was with the disposable phones. I recommend going to Obihai's forums, there are a lot of people who are very knowledgeable about Google Voice numbers and porting.
http://www.obitalk.com/forum/
If I may be so bold as to answer my own question, "No and Yes", based on my experience and limited understanding gained through setting up this configuration. Similar to how the Sprint-GoogleVoice integration enables a Sprint cell number to be used directly with Google Voice, when an Obihai ATA (analog telephone adapter) is provisioned with Google Voice as a SIP, the Google Voice number communicates directly with the Obihai as a VOIP device. So in this case, there is no intermediate call "forwarding" number required and the Obihai "number" is really an endpoint definition and can be considered virtual. In contrast, when Google Voice is used in conjunction with a Ting device, the communication is via a cellular gateway and requires the use of the cell phone's registered Ting number to define the endpoint of the call, and is not "virtual". Although my experience so far suggests that this arrangement poses additional complexity and limitations in terms of CNAM, caller ID, and voice mail, I think the the Sprint/Google Voice integration will result in higher usage charges because all connections through Google Voice will count against monthly minutes. In contrast, the use Google Voice with Ting forwarding only counts against Ting minutes if the cellular link is used. Google Voice usage initiated or routed through VOIP devices and software phones will not count against Ting minutes.
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