I’d rather a video to answer the riddle: “when will Google Voice be usable outside the US?”

Google Voice is useless for more until I can port my number.

Yeah, and also when will they integrate voice+gizmo5 in Android?

Its funny to see people continually slam Google Voice voicemail transcription. There are so many factors that come to play in getting a perfect transcription. Fast talker, enunciating, background noise and etc. Google Voice isnt perfect but for the most part I can read the transcription to get a handle on what the caller is trying to say. For what I am paying its well worth it.

Where’s the video that tells me when I can port my number to Google Voice?

Normally my transcripts get the point across, I don’t expect them to be perfect. This one last night was the best (and no its was not from my dad either haha):

So I will Omaha of the problem beautiful on this is your health him for me and for the If you could please give me a call back. I would appreciate it. On your papa Saleem.

Google voice is not present in all parts of world. Also, it is not business oriented.

I am not sure of the monetization. Maybe it is ads driven.

PBXPlus (www.pbxplus.com( has been giving DIDs also for the last 2-3 weeks. It comes with voice recognition, skype forwarding, extensions etc. – targeting businesses. It also supports Google voice and Skype. At least they try to upsell with more mins and IVR apps.

However for Google, it is still revenue less. But for G!, it is just pocket change.

My biggest gripe is that call quality is pretty lousy when I call the UK (from my Droid). (Fuzzy and with a slight delay).

I have it configured to only kick-in for international calls. The quality doesn’t make me want to try it for domestic calls.

I’m actually excited to try Skype when it appears next month. The computer-to-computer quality is exceptional, so let’s see how the handset-to-computer and handset-to-phone quality is.

Transcriptions aren’t quite as bad as you say. You can often discern the meaning. But favourite will always be this one my father left me. He said “Hey, it’s me. Give me a call at work when you can”. GV said “Hey, it’s me. Give me a call or cocaine when you can”. And that was in the bold font Google uses when they are positive about their transcription.

Gave up on GV. Now using Ribbit Mobile. Using the automated transcription service. Not perfect, but getting better results than with Google.

I like the dancing emoticon, but other than that, I think the real issue is that most people don’t need Google Voice.

I, for one, have one phone. A mobile. And so do most of my friends, most of my work colleagues, and even most of the people I contact because of work.

Google Voice is really for people with multiple phones, and that number is dwindling every day.

If my perception of who GV is suited for is wrong, then that’s the value proposition they need to get across. That video does not do it.

Google voice has a very capable app for the blackberry as well.

Yesterday, Twitter users complained of poor voice quality on Google Voice, which I also experienced. (One caller told me he had to hang up because the connection was so bad.) It is impossible to contact anyone at Google Voice about such issues. (Tweets to @vpaquet and @googlevoice have been ignored.) When a phone number is so essential, the quality of service (and customer service) must be better. (Yes, the price is right, but still…)

ive been using google voice since the days of grandcentral. im almost ready to finally give up because i’ve been waiting for porting for years. without being able to use a number i’ve had for a decade, i see no point in continuing to use two numbers, which defeats the whole point of google voice in the first place.

What would be cool is if it went out of invite only mode and I could actually try it. I’ve been waiting for a lonnnggggggg time now.

What does voice quality have to do with Google Voice (yet)? . . . Until they integrate Gizmo5, it isn’t VoIP. . . it just connects your call. You’re still on your carrier’s network – and it’s either the carrier or the hardware that should receive the blame for poor call quality.

The vmail transcriptions tend to be hysterical. Someone needs to hack together a TFLN clone to showcase the choice-est “lost in transcription”

LostInTranscription.com ?

Anybody?

:)

Voicejunkie- I totally agree with you that google voice is not very ideal for business and also not available in many parts of the world.I had signed up with pbxplus.com and I must say what they have is amazing.The interface is very intuitive.They are giving out voice driven pbx and I did get a free number too :)

They also have options to forward calls to skypeid’s. I am pretty sure these guys will give a run for other voice providers money.For a business PBX has got everything you need.BTW their voicemail transcription is spot on too.

From our perspective, here in Germany, this Google Voice stories sound like legends of the Loch Ness monster.

Are there any plans for Europe?

Google Voice is very relevant to call quality because all calls that use a Google Voice number (such as an incoming call to a Google Voice number) pass through Google Voice’s service regardless of what type of phone you are using. So yesterday, for example, I received calls on a landline from people calling my Google Voice number — but the quality of the connection was awful.

Dave, you don’t have to wait at all, you can get a Google Voice invite for $2.99 right here

http://bit.ly/4b80B4

It’s all because of the english language. Google, please make google voice in a less ambiguous language like italian, spanish or greek

screw it… Just created http://www.facebook.com/pages/Google-Voice-Blunders/346208430925?v=wall Google Voice Blunders group on FB. Send in your best and we’ll repost the LOLers.

I’m pretty sure Google is holding out more so for political reasons, rather than scalability/technical reasons.

I recently shut off google voice from my Nexus phone, where I had been using it for international calls. It might be useful for those who have not used GV yet from a cell phone to clarify why I would do this:

(1) no option to switch between google voice and normal phone service on the fly. Yes this is a carrier issue, not a GV issue, but given the fact the GV quality varies greatly, when a call must go through with high quality I want to pay extra to have that happen. Also, I am one of the few using a Nexus off an AT&T network, and the 2-G network often results in worse quality for a GV call than a non-GV call.

(2) Dropped calls – if you are running low on credits, there is no ability to top up on the fly, or to reverse bill to your carrier. I have had several times where my credit runs out and GV simply drops the call without warning.

(3) No calls without credit – if my credit runs out, and I still want to make a call, I want to use the normal phone number, but cannot. So a call that drops because my GV credit ran out cannot be re-dialed until I can get on an internet connection and re-charge my account, making my phone temporarily useless for international calls.

These seem reasonably simple issues to work out, but GV hasn’t cracked them. So until they do, GV no longer gets my business.

Love the idea of Google Voice. Our Virtual PBX has most of these features and then some business options like call transfer and conference calling… I wonder if those are possible with Google voice…

Drunk stick blob doing a dance…. hilarious attempt at endearing humanity Could be much more relevant.

I never knew how cool Google Voice is, until I saw how it has been used on Times Square during the launch of droid.

I think that explains All. Details: http://bit.ly/droid-invasion-via-google-voice

From popular demand… we’ve changed it to Shit Google Voice Said. http://www.facebook.com/pages/ShitGoogleVoiceSaid/312432612549

Now lets see some choice stuff guys!

Too many restrictions in Europe. In Germany and other European countries a home address verification is required. So no chance for such a service.

Not at all related to Google Voice, you spammer.

i have an invite, dm me on twitter your email and ill send you one.

My favorite Google Voice VM was from an Asian restaurant who called me to say:

“Hello my all of the handy calling from before the number rush on. I just want to see it was bit maybe give us a Obama, Paul and he’s 145 to 230 if you’ve any questions call me back. Okay, bye bye.”

They got: hello, okay, and bye bye. Nice!

ok it didnt include my twitter @martindoug

[...] Now if only Google could explain that whole sexting thing. [...]

GV will forward to a Canadian number.

[...] Now if only Google could explain that whole sexting thing. [...]

One of my favorites: “Hi Cam, gimme a call when you get a chance i got good news for you. Bye bye. Yeah, Kevin expecting that.”

i WAS expecting that :)

Ribbit.com

It’s where it’s at.

perhaps they can tell us why
- transcription sucks compared to SpinVox
- SMS notifications are really clumsy compared to SpinVox (multiple messages and they appear to come from you not the callers phone number so not contact lookup on the phone)
- no native WinMo VoIP dialer

could have been awesome, but right now it’s a lot of meh

[...] Now if only Google could explain that whole sexting thing. [...]

[...] Now if only Google could explain that whole sexting thing. [...]

I don’t understand how the fact that you only have Edge and not 3G affects the voice quality when using Google Voice, since it’s not a VoIP service.

Nevermind :) I forgot that voice quality on 3G with AT&T can be much better than Edge (depending on what the other side is using).

You can port your number to GV. I have not done it myself, but saw a video of Mike Arrington talking about it.

It actually is VOIP; Google Voice uses VOIP to bridge the two calls. The opposite of your phone company’s call forwarding, which will actually *switch* the call.

If you call yourself from Google Voice you can see how bad the quality delay is. This is inherent to VOIP systems over the Internet.

Why can’t you switch between Google Voice and AT&T for outgoing calls? Check your settings. For incoming calls, you can switch mid-call to a land line if you are near one. I haven’t tried it, but that might improve the performance.

My biggest problem with GV is the call quality. It’s very iffy and it’s not because of bandwith. We have a 100Mbps line with plenty of free bandwith.

Still seems useless to me.

[...] If you are a Google Voice user and you’ve tried to explain the service to someone else, it probably didn’t go well. The other party likely came away as flummoxed as ever, and you made a fool of yourself with all that wild gesticulating. Well, that’s what happened to us anyway. Don’t worry though; from now on you can simply direct friends and family to Google’s new series of Youtube videos detailing the “awesomeness” of Google Voice. [...]

[...] Now if only Google could explain that whole sexting thing. [...]

5 top things I want from GV.

1. Number porting… been a long time can we *PLEASE* get the show on the road?

2. Have more then one number per account (business vs personal etc).

3. have phones (cel phone specificaly) listed with more then one account. I guess if one and two get’s done that is less urgent but right now is frigging irritating.

4. Voip.

5. faxes. Combined with 4 so I can send a fax via voip directly from my comp. woot. I keep hoping fax’ing with just to the heck away but that just doesn’t seem to be happening.

@kyle. Do you know what droid and google voice really is?

[...] [TechCrunch] [...]

Yeah, it makes my day to read the nonsense transcribed from Google Voice. It’s like free comedy, lol.

No, you can’t.

http://www.google.com/support/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=115102

[...] If you are a Google Voice user and you’ve tried to explain the service to someone else, it probably didn’t go well. The other party likely came away as flummoxed as ever, and you made a fool of yourself with all that wild gesticulating. Well, that’s what happened to us anyway. Don’t worry though; from now on you can simply direct friends and family to Google’s new series of Youtube videos detailing the “awesomeness” of Google Voice. [...]

I agree. I was talking about this with a friend of mine the other day. We were sitting in church when my dad called me. I let it go to voicemail, and then the transcription popped up. It was about half understandable.

When the meeting was over, I turned to my friend, and mentioned to him how horrible GV’s voicemail transcriptions always are.

He said to me that he’s found that it depends greatly on who’s leaving the message. He told me that when his father (who has a somewhat strong Mexican accent) leaves a voicemail, the transcription is pure gibberish. But when I call him (I’m an actor with voice training), the transcriptions are always perfect.

If you think about, just listening to a voicemail is often like that. I listened to the message my dad left me later, and to be honest, a couple parts where GV bungled up, I had trouble understanding him too, and I’ve known him my whole life.

My favorite Google Voice translation included a sexual reference, which bore no relation to what the customer was saying. Though I did get quite a laugh out of reading “he’s in her ass” on my text from Google Voice:

Hi, My name is I, Gina and or of this. He’s in her ass. Hey, it’s Thursday and update for the Raj delivery it and I just checked my AT U. P. S. I’ll order number and I was trying to truck. That’s my package and see it when I will be receiving and this is on Monday and I was actually hoping to get there by some days. Vitabon times dates my paper ready for teens and for some reason its own.

Griffon … 5 things you want from GV.
1: You can port your number, but get GV lite.
2. Get a second GV number on “other” email. forward to ipkall and then to gizmo5 and back to regular GV number.
3: Wah…wah..wah…It’s free
4: Voip, GV>Sipgate>sipsorcery>Sipdevice. I got it working now
5: Faxzero.com works great from mobile browser.

VM transcription is OK. I get enough to know if I “need” to call and listen

Most of you sound like a bunch of whiny little 3 year olds that broke their favorite toy.

Doubt that was a spammer, probably just misinformed, but Kyle’s right. Google’s Voice Search has nothing to do with the Google Voice product.

[...] Its “Awesomeness,” Gibberish Filed under: Uncategorized — tomlothian @ 5:25 pm Google Voice Launches A Series Of Videos To Explain Its “Awesomeness,” Gibberish by MG Siegler on Feb 18, [...]

Since I started using Google voice, I haven't listened to a single voicemail on my phone… and only a handful on the computer.

Google Voice is the future.

Thank you Google.

Keep it up – Please get fiber optics into Saint Paul, Minnesota as soon as you can. Comcast is killing us.

Free GV @ anywhere in the world

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1zrgZaK0lYzsEKQp6AvF2P4fyoIyGnCCeMWy8lSwRMqI

Best voip/sip provider : http://bit.ly/bnQXij