Make and receive Google Voice calls directly from/on your computer!

I’m a big believer in old-fashioned phone technology. Whenever possible, I want my calls to be to and from landlines using wired phones. Likewise, I don’t want to carry on a serious conversation on a speakerphone. One of the things that I like best about Google Voice is that my phone calls ultimately end up on my real phones.

Most of the time, this is great, but sometimes we are already using our computer and we’d just like to be able to use it as a phone as well. (Maybe you are using a laptop computer and have a Wi-Fi connection to the internet, but no cellular phone reception.) “That’s what Skype is for.” True, but tying your Skype account to your Google Voice account requires you to buy a SkypeIn account. (i.e. a real phone number for between $24 and $60 per year.) There is a better answer:

Gizmo

Gizmo is a lot like Skype. (I’ll leave it for someone else with the time and interested to do a good compare and contrast review of both services.) Gizmo, like Skype, requires you to install a small program that connects to the internet and uses your computer’s microphone and speakers in order to become a telephone. The critical difference is that Gizmo gives you a SIP number. While a SIP number is not a regular phone number that can be directly dialed, it is a telephone industry standard for connecting telephony devices. The way that that helps us here is that Google Voice will allow you to use your Gizmo number as one the phones on your account. (Unfortunately, not the only phone on your account, but that probably has a lot to do with their current FCC controversies.)

There are other good reasons why you may want to add Gizmo to your Google Voice Account. Maybe you don’t have a cellular phone, but take your NetBook everywhere that you go. Maybe you don’t like using up your cellular phone minutes when you don’t have to. You want to keep using your Google Voice account, even when traveling outside the U.S. You might like some of Gizmo’s other features. (Please feel encouraged to add your reasons to the comments at the end of this article.)

How to add Gizmo to your Google Voice account:

First, go to the official Gizmo site www.Gizmo5.com, then download and install the Gizmo client for your computer. (They have versions for Windows, Mac, Linux, Nokia Tablets and other mobile devices.) The installation process will take you through setting up a free account and assigning you a free SIP number.)

Second, tell Google Voice that you are adding another phone to your account. Choose “Gizmo” as the phone type and enter your SIP number. (Gizmo: Adding a Gizmo number (from Google Voice Help))

You’re ready to go!

Steven (at) GoogleVoiceSecrets.com

Here’s an extra credit question for the readers that I am wondering about – if you already have a SIP number that you are using with something else (like Asterisk, the open-source PBX), can you tell Google Voice that it is a “Gizmo” phone and have it work the way that you’d want it to?

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Posted by Google Voice Secrets

Nov 14, 2009

Google Voice Secrets said...

We'd love to hear from anyone who has actually used GoogleVoice with Gizmo5 on a Wi-Fi enabled airplane.

Twenty years ago it was fun to call people while in flight (for $3 per minute), just to be able to say "I'm calling you from the plane". (I used to like to call my little nephews and tell them to look out their living room window, because I was in THE plane that they would be looking at. (I suppose if the plane then exploded, that would have then required a lot of expensive psycho-therapy, but it was worth the risk. ;-) )

The new thrill might be to make or answer a call and happen to mention that you're on a plane well into a conversation. After the other person questions your sanity for spending $3 per minute, point out that for you, a www.GoogleVoiceSecrets.com reader, the calls are free.

If you don’t know who to call, remember you can always call www.GoogleVoiceSecrets.com at (585) 466-4538, aka (585) GOOGLE-V. Be sure to let us know if you’d like your message posted to the site, otherwise we will assume that it is a private message.

Bruce Wagner said...

Didn't Oprah make a Skype video call from an airplane equiped with wi-fi...?

Here’s the press release on Oprah’s call:
http://www.virginamerica.com/va/press/2009/May/Virgin_America_First_Airline_to_Offer_Fleetwide_WiFi.html

I know that people have made Skype calls from commercial airliners before, but I believe that it is discouraged for bandwidth reasons. On the other hand, until too many people try to do this (or stream video from YouTube or Hulu), the airplane’s Wi-Fi should be able to keep up.

There are a few important differences though. Number One – Calling a regular phone (or receiving calls from regular phones) with Skype requires SkypeOut and/or SkypeIn services, both of which cost real money. Using Google Voice with Gizmo5 for connecting to real phones via your computer is COMPLETELY FREE. This combination adds to ability to make and receive calls via your normal phone number, even when all you have available is your computer and an internet connection. Presumably, you’d prefer to be using your home, office or cellular phones under normal circumstances, but at least this combination gives you another connectivity option.

Oprah made a video call, as seen in science fiction. Oddly enough, even though a video call logically is a much higher value event than a regular voice call, video calls are free on Skype (and Gizmo5).

A video call made perfect sense for Oprah’s call – she was showing off the technology for her television show and this was the flashy way to do it. On the other hand, one reality is that a video call probably uses at least ten times the bandwidth of an audio call, so a plane’s limited Wi-Fi would get oversaturated that much sooner if too many people wanted to start making video calls from the air. (I bet that no one else was allowed to get on the internet and start a few uploads and downloads while Oprah was on the air.J)

Again, the most important difference is that the real value for most people comes from being able to make and receive calls from real phone numbers! With Google Voice and Gizmo5 it’s free. With Skype it is not.

Over the past thirty years a number of companies have tried to market “video phone” type devices. Their target market seemed to be mainly families, to “let the grandparents see their grandchildren”. Very nice, but I don’t think that any of these companies succeeded. If any of us wanted this type of functionality today, we’d probably just set up the grandparents with a netbook (with a camera) and show them how to click on the one icon to answer a video call coming in via Skype or Gizmo5.

Let’s face it – Video phones looked great in science fiction, but in reality, how many calls would you actually answer at home if they all included mandatory video? J

I started to write up an overview of the costs of using Skype and it got rather long, but potentially useful, so I’ve already posted it as a separate article here:
http://www.googlevoicesecrets.com/skype-101-costs-and-benefits

Steven (at) GoogleVoiceSecrets.com<o:p></o:p>

Google Voice Secrets