Oh the fun with Google Voice!! Tips, tricks, and hints for getting the most out of Google Voice

I have been using Google Voice for the past couple of years since I got an invite and did not really start using it heavily until more recently.  I remember when I got the invite.  It was still a somewhat primitive service but I could tell that it was powerful.  I knew that since Google had gotten their hands on it, it was going to be developed and actually become something great.  It was a pretty limited service at that point and you needed to either be invited, or bribe a friend to send you an invite.  Well, those days are over because now you can sign up for Google Voice simply by going to www.google.com/voice and it will link up your google ID (used for any other google services) with your new Google voice account or prompt you to sign up for a new account.

You can do alot with Google voice including free text messaging over data, voicemail transcription and management and many other things.

Google Voice service is pretty great in and of itself, but there are a TON of tricks and things that I have found that I could do with Google Voice to make my current cell phone service and other online services better.  While I won’t list all of the possibilities I have found, I will list a few that have seriously piqued my interest and may benefit others.

One thing I would recommend is looking at your cell phone carrier’s plans and see what is available.  Many carriers have some type of myfaves, a-list, or friends and family plan that gives you the option of selecting certain phone numbers each month which, once selected, your carrier gives you unlimited minutes on that number as long as it is on that list.  What you can do is add your Google Voice number to that list of numbers though which you can do unlimited calling and BOOM you now have unlimited minutes for the price of a lesser plan.  It will also be difficult for any of those carriers to track exactly which numbers are Google Voice numbers and which are legit numbers since Google Voice numbers are pretty uniquely chosen when you sign up.  For example, I use my basic (now discontinued) T-Mobile myfaves 300 plan which gives you 300 minutes per month plus 5 unlimited number slots for $39.99 per month and I use my Google Voice number in one of those slots.  Right now, I have an iPhone 3G running the old Cydia jailbroken app to make calls and send text messages

.  Soon, I will be getting some type of Google Android phone giving me much tighter integration.  Check to see what YOUR carrier offers.  You may be able to “upgrade” to a better plan with those 5 unlimited calling slots without breaking contract.  No promises there…but check it out and see what you can do.

Another cool service is from Sipgate. This is a VOIP service (Voice Over Internet Protocol) that allows you to use SIP phones (similar to the ones that Vonage uses) along with their software.  They have different tiers of service, but their basic service, Sipgate One is free.  When you sign up for Sipgate, you get a free phone number and voicemail among other things like the ability to fax, free internal calls (free sipgate to sipgate calls….basically mobile-to-mobile minutes), call recording, call distribution, conference calling, three-way calling, forwarding, advanced routing, and more.  You can integrate this service along with a sipgate iPhone app, softphone, or SIP phone.  One word of warning is that you do have to pay for OUTGOING calls but when you use it with Google Voice, you should never, technically, have to make outgoing calls.

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