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So I ditched my iPhone 4 (really ditched AT&T due to paying $187/mo for 2 phones) and got a Nexus S. Great phone so far. I have not ported my number off of AT&T yet as my wife wanted to wait until she gets back from a trade show next week to really dive into her Nexus S, so we didn't want to kill the AT&T account just yet. I have a Google Voice account, but never really did anything with it. Thanks to the GV integration into Gingerbread, I'm beginning to think I might want to port my number to Google Voice instead of to T-Mobile. Any thoughts/pros/cons/etc?

I'm confused a little bit.

Once you port your number to Google Voice, it is not bound to a carrier anymore? So unless you have wifi access to the internet all the time from your Nexus S, can you even use GV from that "no number" phone?

Google Voice and when ATT is allowed to swallow Tmobile you can bail. I know you can bail anyways but it will be easier to go to Sprint.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/21/sprint-google-voice-getting-tight-integration-will-let-you-use/

Flying Fox wrote:

I'm confused a little bit.

Once you port your number to Google Voice, it is not bound to a carrier anymore? So unless you have wifi access to the internet all the time from your Nexus S, can you even use GV from that "no number" phone?

Google Voice is not VoIP. Its a call forwarding service, essentially. Google Talk to Phone is VoIP. Its very confusing. I can have GV forward to Google Talk to Phone, to my cell phone, or to any phone I want.

I still have a number on the new phone. I have yet to port the iPhone number over, so I have a temp number on the Nexus S right now. GV is pretty baked into Gingerbread. I have a GV number and everything set up, just not my 'real' number that everyone has. From a caller's perspective, you wouldn't know the difference. You dial it, after 6 or 8 rings it goes to voice mail. Voice mail can be selected 'Carier' or 'Google Voice' on the Nexus S. Using GV gives free transcription and easier access to my VMs in GMail. The only downside is that GV SMS can not be sent to from an email address. IE, right now i can send to [email protected] and get the message on my phone in SMS. Important because thats how we do work alerting, but I still have the carrier number to send to so its not a big deal. Plus side is, when I travel overseas, I can pick up a burner phone and hook GV up to that so people can still call me on my regular number, or forward to my desk phone at work, etc.

Apparently with the Nexus S 4G on Sprint, Sprint will actually be encouraging people to port their numbers to Google Voice instead of to Sprint.

I just am not seeing any downsides to porting to GV. Just hoping someone else could provide a second set of eyes to it.

Just make sure that's what you want, if you have problems don't expect to get any help except from the crappy forums. Also, porting out can be a painful process.

Corrado wrote:

Apparently with the Nexus S 4G on Sprint, Sprint will actually be encouraging people to port their numbers to Google Voice instead of to Sprint.

It makes sense, as the digital voip signal uses less data than the analog voice signal. saves sprint money.