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Comment by anoonmoose | Hacker News Reader

Your comment about the blog prompted me to go check the Google Voice blog...nothing since May 2013. Crap. I've been using, loving, and recommending GV since I started using it in 2010 when I got my first smartphone...one day they're just gonna up and shut down GV and not only will I lose a service I'm extremely fond of but I also won't get, you know, phone calls, because that's the number I've handed out for the last five years.

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I ported my number out of Google Voice a couple of years ago. Some things to keep in mind with GV:

* Your only form of "support", even when paying to port out a number, is a forum staffed entirely with volunteers. If you're actually using GV it's useful to read through here to see the trainwreck: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/voice

* As the parent mentioned, the GV Blog is barren.

* You're better off porting out your number now given this support situation.

Well, I mean, I certainly don't wish I did it years ago like you did- I love GV. I can't see myself leaving it until they make me, either through closing it down or making it too obnoxious to use or etc..

Which consumer Google product has a kind of support different than a volunteer forum?

Try to get help for Google Music, or Google+, or an Android software.

They should at least sponsor and monitor some tags in the stack exchange forums like Microsoft does.

> Which consumer Google product has a kind of support different than a volunteer forum?

The one I've dealt with recently is Google Express.

The best support (the only real support) I’ve ever gotten for Google products were

(a) partnersupport-de@youtube.com (support for youtube partners, monetized, back in the days, German),

(b) This very website. Start an angry thread, get it to the front page – or post a comment on a frontpage thread about a dev topic – and suddenly some Google dev ends up fixing it, and in the same moment, your comment on here disappears.

Support methods I have also tried:

(c) Buying Google Apps for Business (the 30 day free month), then calling their support, after the support call was successful, cancelling it again (doesn’t work, Google doesn’t answer Google Apps for Business calls, someone takes your call, you say hi, in the same second they hang up on you)

Support methods I have not tried yet, but plan to, in case the previous ones don’t work anymore:

(d) Just arriving in person at their nearest Google office, getting entrance somehow, and then directly providing my complaints to the next manager (at risk of getting sued for entering their office illegally)

I received some excellent support from the GCS (Google Cloud Storage) team while I was working on my last project. There was only an email address listed in the API docs. I didn't have high hopes when I first contacted them with an issue, but I got a response in less than 24 hours, and a similarly quick response to my following response. That first problem was due to my own misunderstanding of the API, which the person in question patiently helped me better understand.

The last time I was in contact with them was a few months ago. I got another reasonably-timed response, and this was an issue on their end (something to do with an occasionally missed automated notification when files were uploaded). It took a couple weeks or so to fix the problem, but they contacted me after each upgrade (rather than waiting for me to contact them) to follow-up and see if my issue had been resolved. After a couple rounds, it was fixed.

I'm not sure I've ever received personal support from Google prior to that, but in my experience, the GCS support team was/is absolutely top notch.

I spoke to someone at Google on the phone about a problem I had with Google Music. There is a "request callback" link in the help/support section. I've also asked questions on the phone regarding purchasing videos from their digital store- specifically, what quality playback would be supported on my Chromebook model. It didn't take long from question asked -> question answered in either case.

Where did you port your number to? Any suggestions for an alternative to GV?

For services that have feature parity with GV, I'd recommend ring.to. Note that ring.to is run by bandwidth.com, the same CLEC that Google Voice uses for most (all?) of its numbers, so porting is easy:

https://ring.to/#newservice

For a more hands-on alternative, Anveo is a good choice (and they have SIP and SMS short code support):

https://www.anveo.com/

ring.to sign-up seems to assume porting an existing number. Is there a way to sign up for a new number?

>RingTo launched over two years ago with a simple mission: help more people keep the phone numbers they love. In the spirit of moving forward, several changes are coming down the pipeline we want to share with you.

>In early 2016, RingTo will transition to a paid service and will no longer offer free accounts to new or existing users. But don’t worry, we’re making it worth your while to stay with us!

I'd say they haven't quite finished the new signup yet.

I guess this is a good thing? If it's paid it might stick around for a while longer.

Edit: not sure I'd touch them - http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=9094a6314c49a804bd522a79...

I use voip.ms. It has a good service. Some limited SIP knowledge help if you wish to make it work ok.

I ported my google voice number to... Google Fi! Most of the same features, plus now I don't deal directly with Verizon/T-Mobile/etc.

I suspect that is where the resources that had been on Google Voice have gone to.

so you moved away from a dying product from yesterday from a company that gives zero support even if you're paying ... to the dying product of tomorrow.

I am not from the USA. I have a GV number and I have been using it for a couple of years and it's super helpful. I am not sure how I can keep it once they shut GV down.

Legally, you own your number, and have the right to transfer it. This should still apply if it shuts down.

IANAL, but see https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/keeping-your-telephone-...

You don't legally "own" your number. You have the right to port it, but that is not the same thing.

Huge opportunity here for a startup to be building a beautiful, well-maintained alternative to Google Voice, basically Grandcentral all over again :)

Say we get the announcement that GV is going away tomorrow... anyone know of a decent alternative?

OMG, my GV number is so precious to me, all my friends remember it because it's so easy to remember, in case if they lost their mobile phone and need to call someone.

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