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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
The best value for land-line replacement
By Mike West
I was looking for a way to reduce my land-line phone bill but still keep a land-line. I tried MagicJack. It was OK. But it was still $40 a year if you wanted to port your existing home number. Plus, you could not get caller ID with name. Further research lead me to settle on this product, the GVMate.GVMate is the absolute easiest way to use your existing plain old telephone set with Google Voice (GV) and drop your existing land-line service. Currently, GV is free. Google could certainly change that, and it is fair to assume they will if they can't find an ad-sponsored way to make money off of it (AFAIK, there are no ads when you retrieve your GV mail, but it would make sense for them to include them).The basics:1) Plug the GVMate USB dongle into a USB port on your PC. The instructions say not to use extenders, but the dongle was conflicting with my case design, so I used a 3" extender anyway, without any issues. Also, I only tested this on USB 2.0 ports. I did not test any dinosaur USB 1.1 computers or on USB 3.0 ports.2) Download and install the latest software from GVMate's web site. I am using Windows 7 x64. Chromium, a stripped down version of Google Chrome, will also be installed and kept running.3) If you don't already have one, create a Google Voice account. If you already have an account, be sure to log off the GV account on any other devices, otherwise, this will confuse Google Voice.4) Plug your phone into the GVMate. This was very convenient for me. The telco had installed a "demarcation point" or demarc for short. Basically this is the jack you plug your entire household phone wiring into. It was a simple matter to just swap in a longer telephone cord and plug into the GVMate instead. Just be sure not to exceed the total Ringer Equivalency Number recommended for the GVMate. It was again, simple for me, because I have only one phone attached. Also, the PC I am using is my media server, which I keep in the basement (near the telco demarc) and I run it 24/7.The details:1) e911 service: Enhanced 911 service reports your location automatically to the 911 call center, so if, for example, you are choking and unable to talk, they will at least know where to dispatch emergency services. This service is part of your itemized phone bill with a land line. It's also often included in the fees for many of the VOIP providers (like magicJack). Google Voice, however, does not provide this. PCPhoneSoft has arranged for a third-party service to provide this for you, for a nominal $12 per year. It is entirely optional, but entirely recommended.2) Caller ID with name (CNAME): This features is usually provided for an additional charge by your local phone company. You can't get this with MagicJack, although some other VOIP providers do offer it. GV does not provide it, so again, PCPhoneSoft has arranged for a third-party to provide this. The cost is $10.00 per block of 1,000 lookups (That's a penny per name). The way this works, is when a call comes in, their CID number is sent to you between the first and the second ring. GVMate takes that number and checks it against the custom directory list you have stored on your computer (through GVMate). If there is no entry found, only then does the third-party database get polled. Since most of our inbound phone calls are from people we know, once they've been added to the directory, 95% of the calls do not get checked, so there's no cost for them. Honestly, I expect this $10 to last me a couple of years.3) Call-blocking and spam rejection: This is actually a GV optional feature and I will say it is absolutely amazing. I used to get about 20 spam calls per day from surveys, solicitors, and illegal telemarketers who ignored my participation in the federal donotcall.gov list. Use GV, I might get one a day, maybe. These are blocked at the GV level and never reach the GVMate. Since Google is tracking phone spam, there weren't too many numbers I had to add to the block list. Very nice.4) Outbound caller ID with name: boo hiss. Only the outbound CID number is sent. Google does not sell your name to any third party database, so you are not registered in any. If you want to register your name with your number, there are a couple third party sites you can submit your information to and you will likely (but not necessarily) get a CNAME entry for your phone number.5) Porting your existing local phone number: When you change your local exchange carrier, by law, your former phone company must release that number to the new one. Thee days, it's a fairly trivial process. But, not with GV. It's a Google issue. Don't ask me why. Don't ask Google why, either - they won't tell you (just keep repeating "free phone service" to yourself, take a deep breath and follow this workaround). Google will allow you to port a number from a cell phone for a one-time fee of $20. Cell-phone service providers, including those that offer prepaid, no contract service, will allow you to port your land-line number to a cell-phone, usually at no additional charge. See where this is going? The whole process takes 0 - 3 days to port to a cell phone, and then 1 - 3 days to port from the cell phone to Google Voice. This has been covered elsewhere and I don't think Amazon likes external links, so I'll just say it cost me $11 for the disposable cell phone account, bring my total cost to $31 to retain my existing land line phone number.6) Call quality: Good, but not amazing. It is at least as good, if not better than MagicJack but not as good as a land-line over copper or fiber, or even VOIP provided by the cable company. However, in this present day of everyone using their cell phone and finding that quality acceptable, this is quite passable, as well. There are a few things to keep in mind. Number one, of course, is your available bandwidth. The codec that GV uses does not require a lot of bandwidth, but if you are hammering your internet connection with downloading, uploading, or streaming a bunch of movies, the quality will suffer, to the point where it is not useful. This is where you either work on traffic shaping with your router (good luck) or throttle back your data usage (or increase the available bandwidth). I would say, I'm probably in the extremes on this, and the average user is not going to be at the point where bandwidth becomes an issue. There is one other quality issue I will address next:7) DTMF suppression: The Codec using by GV can sometimes misinterpret sounds and turn them into annoying touch tone bursts. GVMate allows you to suppress this. However, this prevents you from sending DTMF tones to dial extensions, menu trees, banking, etc. This feature can be disabled permanently, by call, and by digit. It is a bit of a nuisance, but one I am willing to put up with.8) Faxes and modems: Not gonna happen. This is a limitation of the very efficient codec used by Google Voice. So, if you still send and receive faxes, you might want to consider using a third party service. I won't plug the company here, by my monthly fax service bill is usually less than $4.00. However, if you still process credit cards through a dial-up terminal, it's time to switch... or keep the land-line.9) Number of rings before going to voice mail: This is a GV feature and Google has proclaimed that the number is 4. Too few? Too bad. Get your free phone service elsewhere or deal with it. Since there is no other free phone service, I chose to deal with it. Now why is this a big deal to me? Because, in my house, it often takes longer than 30 seconds for someone to drop what they're doing and answer the phone. Normally, in our house the phone gets picked up while the caller is leaving a message on the answering machine. That won't work if the call has already been forwarded to VM. Work-around: Set the answering machine to 3 rings instead of 4 (yes, GV voicemail wins the tie almost every time). Easy solution? Surprisingly, a big PITA. If you want to set your answering machine for 1, 2, 4 and sometimes 6, 8, or even 10 rings it's probably an option. But 3 rings? Nope. So, I had to replace my answering machine with a cheap AT&T 1740 that could be set to answer in 3 rings. Not elegant, but problem solved. If Google would allow me to change the number of rings before going to voicemail, I would happily switch to GV VM, because it is a fantastic service.Technical issues: Be sure you have the audio output device set correctly. Since GVMate is on my media server, I suspect my installation is far more complicated than others. If you find you can't talk through the phone, check this first before losing hair over other potential causes.GVMate does require that an account is actively logged in to the desktop, which I consider a potential security risk. Just be aware of this and make sure it's OK for your situation.Lastly, the tech support for the GVMate has been very good. It's by email, but they are very prompt at responding and the information has been very helpful. also, they are open to user suggestions and the product is improved upon regularly.This is one of the few products I get excited enough about to recommend to anyone looking to cut their phone bill way down. For me, I had a few hoops to jump through before losing the landline, but to save over $240 a year, it was well worth the effort.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Very good customer service, but be advised - Professional Version no longer included
By HighPks
Please be advised that this product no longer includes the Professional version of the GVMate App. I received this email in reponse to my post-purchase inquiry:"The GVMate Phone Adapter includes the features listed in the product description at [...] as provided by the GVMateApp Standard Version. A license key for the GVMateApp Standard Version that is also sold separately at[...] is included and ships with each GVMate Phone Adapter.The standard features provided by the GVMateApp are all automatically available and the features available from Google Voice may be easily be accessed by right mouse clicking on the GVMateApp traybar icon and selecting "Phone Account" from the menu that appears. Further instructions on the features available from Google Voice are detailed on their website here [...]Upgrades from the GVMateApp Standard Version to Professional Version are optionally available for $10 and handled on special request. If you would like to upgrade your GVMateApp license key, please email us your current license key and we will send you instructions to complete the upgrade purchase.PCPhoneSoft Support Team"Although the product does indeed work with the Standard version there are two needed features, only available in the Professional version, that make it useable, in my opinion:1) 7-digit local dialing. Without this feature, my existing phone system cannot dial local numbers, as its directory entries are automatically stored as 7-digits for local numbers. The Standard version of the app can only perform 10-digit dialing making my directory, years in the making, unuseable.2) The ability to turn off the "Call Alert Window". With this feature enabled a window pops up for each call. With a house full of people, this can get a bit annoying. Only the Professional version of the app allows you to disable the "Alert".If these two features were included in the Standard version of the app, or if the Professional version continued to be included, this product would have a niche at this price point. Unfortunately, you have to spend $10 more to get these features, making this product (including shipping) the same price as the $40 OBi100 VoIP Telephone Adapter and Voice Service Bridge. At that price point the OBi has two major advantages: 1) it plugs into your router, so there is no application to keep running on your pc and 2) it can utilize two Google Voice accounts instead of just one.Having to run an app on your pc turns out to be a significant drawback for the GVMate. I have tried, without success, to run the GVMateApp as a Windows service. Without the ability to do that, the app must be started from a logged in account and that user must stay logged in. If that pc were to reboot for some reason, you would have no service until someone noticed that user wasn't logged in and the GVMateApp wasn't running. The ability to run it as a Windows service would solve this and make this product nearly as reliable (assuming your pc is reliable) as a product that plugs into a router.Finally, I have to give props to their customer service. They are somewhere in between very good and outstanding. In two emails to them I received prompt and curteous replies and they solved my concerns fairly and equitably.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
It works
By Sean B Man
I am surprised this device actually works. Plug it in and make sure you have a google voice account and you are good to go. I only wish they also had a device which did not require me to plug it into a computer. That would be even better.
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