Google Voice VoIP Calls Will Be Live For Everyone by Next Week

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google took a long, long break from Google Voice a while back. After letting the app fall into disrepair, Google expressed a renewed commitment to Voice in 2017. It has since announced a handful of feature updates, including VoIP calling in 2018. However, that feature never actually rolled out to everyone. Google's Scott Johnston says it's almost time, though. We know that some Voice users got VoIP calling as far back as September. Like far too many Google features lately, this is a server-side change and not controlled by an app update. For some unknown reason, Google has dragged its feet rolling it out to everyone. According to Johnston, things are back on track and the VoIP calling feature will be live for all users by next week.If you're looking for another option besides Google Voice, check out alternatives.

"Trust Google"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like they'd just farm your data out to the highest bidder, they've got a multicolor logo and a slogan to match. What's the worst that could happen?

https://mobilesyrup.com/2018/08/22/google-data-collection-report/

Obi box

[kalpol]

I've had VOIP via Google for years, both on a laptop and with a regular old phone on an Obi box. Do they just mean they're adding this functionality to the mobile application?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. They're making a hub that interconnects their apps.

I will use this!

[Anonymous Coward]

For the same reason I let Facebook scrape my contact list. I absolutely want the world's biggest surveillance and advertising company to know everyone I call.

Re:I will use this!

[HornWumpus]

That ship sailed a long time ago.

Not Google but NSA/GCHQ etc (and yes, they've got your google profile, DNS, torrents etc etc). It's not even a conspiracy theory anymore, just a fact.

'3 eyes' is when the ship officially sailed, 1945. They kept metadata (who people had called) on paper. We spy on England, England spys on us (Australia etc etc), everybody shares. Nobodies constitution gets 'violated'. Privacy shmivacy.

Free anon services are an invitation to poison the well.

Re:

[Tokolosh]

Google, FB et al. do not assert the right to lock me up for my "Three Felonies a Day", or to drone strike me without due process.

Re:I will use this!

[Sir Holo]

Some of you will remember anon.penet.fi, a free email anonymizer from the 1990's. I used it a few times back in the late 1990's because I was aware of the security and privacy risks of 'regular' email. That is, 'plain Jane' risks of snooping on personal conversations.

Today, in 2018, I google my real name, and up come some of those anonymized emails, of which no copy was supposed to have ever existed, much less been kept on some server for 20+ years.

They were benign emails, but... privacy. So, I guess I was right about that privacy thing.

Nothing ever goes away once it traverses the internet. And there is no such thing as free (as in beer).

Re:

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I remember anon.penet.fi.

Another useful service that was trashed by spammers abusing it.

Re: I will use this!

[Lenny369]

Today, in 2018?

Re:

[duketor]

I'm sure the SUPO and JSCU have copies of every email that went through there. Julf was based in the Netherlands with a Finnish address.

Re:

[rtb61]

Silly person. It is Google, the worlds biggest VOICE RECOGNITION, handling all you VOICE calls, oh yeah, your conversations will be private, yep, uh huh. Fucking hell, it is not about who you are calling, it is about using computerised voice recognition to analyse the entire conversation, and convert all your privacy into their data, to facilitate control and psychological manipulation. Will or will they not, provide encryption on all of those calls, there is you answer, right fucking there. Google are a pa

That'll be nice - ditch Hangouts

[ripvlan]

This has always confused me and shown how little integration / solution Google has in these areas. I've had Voice since it was GrandCentral. Works great as a PBX. Sure I could answer calls from inside GMail on my PC (strange integration), I had to use Hangouts to "chat" and Talk to my friends on a computer for those without a phone number, but never worked on mobile. This has always required a decoder ring to keep track of which app to use for each feature. Voice has been lacking and frankly I was g

Re:

[AHuxley]

The ads are integrated.

How about SIP service?

[pepsikid]

Give me SIP service again!

I've had Google Voice since it was Grand Central, making and receiving calls with a SIP ATA on a normal desk phone. When they scuttled SIP, I used Asterisk PBX to bridge the gap via an XMPP extension. Now they've scuttled XMPP, and the remaining solution (aside from using Google Hangouts on a PC with a headset) is a hack which shares a single certificate ferreted out of an Obihai ATA. Google's current protocol actually IS SIP, but with funky headers and flags. It's been partly reverse-engineered by the community. Google literally went to extra trouble to make it incompatible with industry-standard IP telephony. I guess that was to try and make it an asset to attract people to their G+ ecosystem.

I want to connect my collection of SIP IP phones straight to Google again. Or, at least have an intermediary which signs on with my Google credentials on one side, and offers SIP service within my LAN. Even a Pidgin plugin would be nice - I'd just leave it running 24/7 and my phones could interface with it.

Yeah!

[Gravis Zero]

I want SIP ATA in the PBX with my XMPP cuz my XMPP is no longer working with my SIP LAN IP because I totally know acronyms too. ;)

Re:

[dissy]

I didn't even know about the Obihai certificate hack until reading your post.

Ultimately I let all my google voice trunk services just die two months ago when they shut down XMPP.

I had two SIP extensions, both handsets tossed back in the boxes, and I just moved one number to an iOS client on my cell.
Noticed that the junk calls have been skyrocketing to that number lately so will probably turn that off too.

Otherwise I only had a "toy" IVR and incoming fax set of trunks I don't even care about. Asterisk is st

Re:

[pepsikid]

@dissy: Everyone using naf's "GVSIP" was sharing the same cert pulled out of one Obihai device. Google let this go on, but finally reached out to various hobbyist teams to tell them to knock it off. I don't know if it still works because I never set it up on my Asterisk server. The nitwits who were integrating "GVSIP" into my flavor of Asterisk had no intention of doing it properly, and projected really bad customer service. I shut down my Asterisk server, since I don't really need all the features, though

Re:

[pepsikid]

and is not free. \o_O/ ..but doesn't look bad I admit.

Re:

[TJ_Phazerhacki]

Google's current protocol actually IS SIP, but with funky headers and flags.

Ah, the old 'Avaya' strategy. Bold move Cotton, let's see how it works out for them...

Re:

[Radworker]

When they finally ceased supporting XMPP (how many years after the announcement did they drop support?) I bought an ObiHai ATA and set my asterisk pbx to use the Obihai as a trunk. Problem solved at least until they pull the plug on GV as a whole. Then I port my number over to my SIP provider.

Re:

[sydbarrett74]

Google's current protocol actually IS SIP, but with funky headers and flags.

Funny how Google is now doing the same 'Embrace, Extend, Extinguish' shit that MS did twenty years ago, whilst MS is actually open-sourcing a lot of their technology. What's old is new again, I guess...

where "all users" = USA

[akorvemaker]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Google Voice is only available in a whopping 1 of the 195 nations on this planet.

I had an account with a competitor named Gizmo back in the day. It routed calls over SIP directly to my Nokia N810. Worked beautifully here. Then Google bought Gizmo, shut it down, and still doesn't offer anything to those living in such far-off, mythical lands as... Canada.

I'm still grumpy about that.

Re:where "all users" = USA

[93 Escort Wagon]

We all know Canada is like Narnia, except without lions.

Re:

[akorvemaker]

But Hangouts (in Canada) doesn't offer a phone number for incoming calls. Google Voice does.

Re:

[P3Ed]

I too had a Gizmo account on a n810, then used the account on a PBX (still running) for roll over on busy for a land line. When Google shut it down, I had 10$ on account, but no way to collect a refund. I switched to working VOIP provider and moved on, but I started to get that MS feeling form Google that day. Just one of the many reasons I run LineageOS with out G apps on my phone now.

For very select numbers of everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

I know slashdot is based in the US, but seriously, even in the US people should realize that US != everyone.

Re:

[Gonoff]

Or England is part of the UK...

VOIP is great

[theblkadder]

So now Google will be able to listen in on your phone calls as well.

Crashed within 5 minutes

[Pow]

Decided to give it a go on iPhone.

I use Hangouts with Google phone number (voip). It works quite well and integrates nicely with Apple's CallKit.

* Google Voice is crippled Hangouts functionality. Why would they cut the Google talk functionality (or whatever it's called nowadays) - chat, voice and video between gmail users?

* No way to browse Google Voice application (like settings, messages, etc) while in call. This works just fine in Hangouts, but hey, it's Google. Probably a new dev team rewriting everythi

Interested to try it

[John.Banister]

If this compensates for my phone's inability to do VoLTE, that would be nice. Last year I could wifi tether my VOIP service to my cellular data, but that no longer works.

Re:

[Gonoff]

"rolling out to `everyone`"? Really

By everyone I presume the OP means just the USA (i.e. 4.5% of "Everyone")?

Or 2% of everywhere