I am looking for a ruling. I was told by Verizon Tech Support today that Google Voice does not use any of your voice minutes when making or receiving calls. Naturally, as long as you are making your call through Google Voice. I have seen other posts on this site where people infer that Google Voice calls do use your voice minutes.
So, does anyone have any documentation on which is right? I don't want to be burning though minutes if I don't have to.
Not to bump my own. I have playing a bit and checking my VZ account and it looks like Tech Support is wrong. Using Google Voice does hit my voice plan. Even worse, since I don't have a voice plan, it is just taking money out of my pocket.
They are in fact wrong. Google voice is not a VOIP service it is a call routing service. Meaning you can not make calls over Google voice you can only use it to connect calls. Fine distinction but an important one. When someone calls your GV number it rings the phones you designate. When you use your GV number to make a call it rings your phone first then connects to the other number. On Android it skips the ring your phone step since you are using your phone to initiate it. However, it is the same kind of operation. You are using Voice minutes to connect to Google Voice service and it is connecting the call. Also if you route your voice mail through GV it charges you minutes for the calls since they are forwarded calls.
Thank You Fezzik. I imagine calling through Google Voice will also skip around the Verizon to Verizon free use since the system will see the call as originating not from Verizon. So, I guess there really is no reason for me to have Google Voice outside the speech to text for the voice mail.
Yeah When you call out using GV it appears on your invoice as an incoming call from your GV number or from a 401 number depending on how it is set up. Aside from that I really like the GV voice mail system and that I can set that number up to ring my work number and other numbers based on a schedule of when I am where. That is nice since I can take calls at work on my work phone from GV calls. I typically give my GV number to businesses and schools. That way I can save minutes because they normally call while I am at work.
There is a work-around. If you have a friends and family plan you can add the Google Voice number as a friends/family number. I don't have a plan that large and don't want to pay for it so I'm just fine using GV for business calls (I bill the clients anyway).
On my bill calls made with Google voice show up on my call record as my Google Voice number. Out going or incoming both show up as incoming from my Google Voice number. Also if someone leaves a message on my phone it uses voice minutes as well. Checking my voicemail doesn't use minutes but the calls that are forwarded to GV mailbox do.
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