Home Phone – Free using google talk

obihaiI just setup our home phone to have free calling and kept our existing number. The new setup I am using incorporates Google voice and an obitalk Obi110 ($40) device.

I have been a VOIP user at our house for the last 7 years. I started with Vonage and have switched to a few providers ever since. The most recent Voipo (www.voipo.com) has been amazing. If you are looking for great customer service, fantastic quality, and good price I would recommend them. However, my 2 year contract was up and I wanted to make a change. (They have a great 2year program for $150 for new subscribers).

I decided to embark on getting a new setup. I followed the base idea from this article:
http://www.howtogeek.com/136959/how-to-switch-to-voip-and-ditch-your-home-phone-bill-forever/ but had to make a few modifications to make this work.

Obitalk allows you to use your google voice number and a OBI device (similar in size to the vonage phone box).

I wanted to use my existing number, we have been attached to our home phone number for a while (school, friends, family) and since we already use VOIP, we have been used to just forwrding that number to our cell phones when not at the house.

To Port our LAN line to google voice and use obitalk I had to add one important step. I had to port my home (LAN) number to a mobile number , before porting it to Google Voice. At the time of writing, google only allows you to port a mobile phone number. When you setup your google voice account if you want to use your existing number it costs $20.

To accomplish this, I ported my number to an ATT goPhone. Once the port was completed (3 days) then I ported it over to google. It may sound like a lot of work, but in reality it was just a few hours of time. The hardest part, was cancelling my current service and sending the rented VOIP box back to them.

Over all the transfer cost me:
1. Att GoPhone : $15 + $10 in minutes
2. Obi110 : Online (ebay) $40 w/ shipping
3. Google Voice number port: $20
TOTAL: $85
Ongoing Monthly Cost: $0 (got that – $0 per month)

Steps:
1. Order obi110
2. Purchase GoPhone (I followed some of this guide)
3. Port LAN number to ATT gophone (do this at the ATT store)
4. Wait for Port (3 days)
5. Port GoPhone to Google Voice (You will need your goPhone account number| call ATT for this – it is not your phone number)
6. Setup ObiTalk account and Link google voice (great tutorials)
7. Start receiving / making calls

Overall the hardest part was porting from ATT goPhone over to Google Voice. It was not clear that you needed to use your goPhone account number. You won’t have this account number, you need to call or go to an ATT store to get it.

The phone quality has been great, and there are also soft phones and an iPhone / Android app to use as well.

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