Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chrome Extension texting

Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by vowelless on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @11:56AM (#20626321)

I have always been worried about Google Voice completely shutting down. I use it a lot. Is there an alternative to it? At this point, I am willing to pay a couple of dollars a month for the service.

Things that I like:

1. Secondary phone number

2. SMS to email

3. Transcripts to email

4. Relatively cheap international calls

Although they haven't shut down the above four features, I am concerned about the future of this product.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by scrollaway on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @12:26PM (#20626662)

Google Voice is an officially-supported GSuite feature now, so it's unlikely to shut down (although so is Google+, and that … had to change, sorta).

But it's weird how they have this overlap between Google Fi and Google Voice. And it's impossible to forward a Fi/Voice number to/from another Voice/Fi number.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by kogir on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @12:32PM (#20626737)

You can pay for it now, and I do: https://cloud.google.com/voice/

It's great if you need multiple numbers.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by dhd415 on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @01:04PM (#20627140)

Wow, I didn't know it was available for GSuite! Anyone know if you can migrate previously-free GV numbers over to it?

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by aaomidi on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @02:46PM (#20628200)

So expensive for what used to be free. I wish they included at least one account with my existing gsuite subscription.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by dougmwne on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @01:39PM (#20627514)

And Gsuite Google Voice now supports international dial-in numbers for several countries.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by vowelless on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @01:52PM (#20627645)

Oh nice, this is great! Thanks

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by paulkon on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @12:02PM (#20626385)

https://www.bandwidth.com/

Google voice, Skype, Zoom and others use their network.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by rsync on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @12:10PM (#20626491)

I'm curious - if I get a number from bandwidth, is it an actual mobile number that can receive SMS from shortcodes ?

That is one downside of twilio - they cannot provide a true mobile number and so therefore you cannot get 2FA and other texts that come from shortcode numbers ...

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by notyourday on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @05:42PM (#20629963)

Nope. Tried it. It failed SMS verification.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by 7h3kk1d on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @12:09PM (#20626481)

Do they have consumer app versions?

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by dougmwne on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @01:38PM (#20627506)

Google Voice spent many years being neglected, but it is now getting heavy investment as part of Gsuite. This change to kill extension and SMS transcripts is actually part of moving to the next generation platform which has improved call quality and reliability. The features are quite niche and were likely deemed not worth keeping in the new version of the product.

There is no serious competitor to Google Voice, so please add it to your Gsuite contracts so that Google keeps it around.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by Marsymars on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @02:24PM (#20627958)

> There is no serious competitor to Google Voice

Other than all the other voip options that are actually available outside of the USA.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by dougmwne on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @05:52PM (#20630053)

The paid version of Google voice in Gsuite is now available in several countries.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by Marsymars on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @07:47PM (#20630787)

No Canada though. Regardless of it being available in a handful of countries, "no serious competitor" is silly, non-Americans have had various options for comparable products for years.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by qes on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @03:15PM (#20628508)

Google shutting down Voice has long worried me as well. The main reason I use it is simply to text from a normal keyboard so I can chat with my spouses throughout the day without interrupting my work flow much.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by JustResign on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @09:07PM (#20631162)

Spouses?

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by sedachv on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @02:58PM (#20628335)

https://jmp.chat/ is what I am considering for a replacement. The service is AGPL and is run by someone that cares about Free Software: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/meet-the-libreplanet-201...

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by 29083011397778 on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @02:00PM (#20627743)

I've been using voip.ms for the past year or so, and it's been great for numbers one and two. Can't speak for number 4 though, as I don't have to travel outside the country too often.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by jaden on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @02:58PM (#20628337)

I've been using voip.ms too. It's $0.85/month for the number plus usage costs ($0.009/minute for calls, free SMS but eventually will be $0.01/text).

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by stevenicr on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @12:24PM (#20626642)

I have been using grooveip ( https://snrblabs.com/Grooveip/FAQ ) for 2 out of 4 of those things and been mostly happy with it. I have not been using all the functions that snrb makes available. Just peeked at the commercial api thing and such.

Think I had an android app at one time that would auto forward sms to email, but that's been a while / a few phones ago.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by anonygler on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @02:00PM (#20627738)

Voice is a core offering for Enterprise... and all of Google relies on it. It’s not going anywhere.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by throwaway542134 on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @02:00PM (#20627747)

So was hangouts.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by anonygler on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @02:06PM (#20627801)

Hangouts is still around, and still available for consumer. It’s being replaced with Chat, which will have feature parity and consumer support. Most people won’t even notice, as it will continue to appear in Gmail with an identical UI.

Google’s communication skills are deeply lacking, and leaks made it worse. But no, Chat is still around for consumers.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by 6cd6beb on Thursday August 08, 2019 @05:14PM (#20648854)

Why would a marketing and analytics company shut down a service that gives them full text transcripts of all of your phone calls?

They may as well stop parsing your email for information about the purchases you make.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by tyingq on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @01:34PM (#20627469)

Anveo.com can do all this, and it's cheap. But lots more fiddling, configuration, etc, to do so. Not for non-techies.

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Re:Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chr... by neom on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @02:19PM (#20627907)

I use AWS chime and it's pretty good

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