I've had a Google Voice number for years and just started using their smart phone app. I give this number out as a 'throw away' number for the usual reasons. I have never thought much about dialing out from the app, but curiosity got me last night as to what number would be displayed when calling OUT. I figured that it would still display my real cell number, but to my surprise, it showed my actual Google Voice number to the called party. Very, very good news I thought.
The app imported my phone directory from my iPhone contacts, which is also great. What has me stumped is what happens when I call out. I dial or select the number I wish to call, then hit the send button. At this point, another box pops up with a totally unrelated number, a strange one, like the ones you get from the car warranty people. When that unrelated number pops up, I then have to press either the CALL button or CANCEL. Am I calling the 800 number that I wanted or am I calling the 786 area code number that is displayed? Note: Despite the fact that I'm pressing CALL for the strange number, I still reach the correct number and caller ID is properly displayed. I'm just curious more than anything, but I'd sure like to know what's going on. If this is normal, then it means that there are two numbers associated with every regular number out there. Any ideas?
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Sounds like your call gets routed through Google Central. You call them then they forward to the number you actually called.
Hmmm. Wonder why?
-Hal
CALIFORNIA PROPOSITION 65 WARNING: Some comments made by me are known to the State of California to cause irreversible brain damage and serious mental disorders leading to confinement.
I have google voice and when I first started with it, that number would show up on the google voice settings, but I tested it from my google voice telephone line to my cell phone, the right number came over on the ID, and that is the only time I had seen that. At the time it struck me as odd.
Try calling something like a plumber and see if you start getting ads for plumbers on your computer when you go to sites that use Google ads.
-Hal
CALIFORNIA PROPOSITION 65 WARNING: Some comments made by me are known to the State of California to cause irreversible brain damage and serious mental disorders leading to confinement.
this is how google voice routes your call over the pstn.... the app calls an 800 number, which then calls whoever you were calling. the alternative would be to be using your data plan to make a voip call, which would also hit a google server somewhere that would dump it into the pstn.
there's a setting in the app under "make and receive calls" that says "use carrier only" or "prefer wi-fi and mobile data" that will switch you between the make a phone call to the 800 number mode and the make a voip call mode. if you're on a data-limited phone plan, and your voice plan is unlimited (aren't all of them, these days?) then "use carrier only" won't eat into your data allowance.
