Unlimited Cell Phone Calling Using Google Voice

Yesterday I gave a brief overview of Google Voice and all the features available through that service.  What most people miss is that Google Voice can be used to exploit enhance the features from you cell phone service.  For this to work you cell phone provider must be one of the providers that allow you to designate a few numbers to make/receive free calls whether they are on your network or not.

Step 1: Sign up for Google Voice (GV) and acquire your GV phone number

Step 2: Route all calls from GV to your cell phone

Step 3: Go the the settings menu on GV and on the General tab scroll down to the "Caller ID" section, click on the radio button that designate "Display my Google Voice number" and then click "Save Changes"

Step 4: List your GV number as one of the numbers you get free calls from with you cell phone carrier

Step 5: Hand out your GV number to anyone who does not have service from your cell phone carrier

Step 6: Enjoy free calling from anyone who calls your GV number

This gives you unlimited incoming calls.  The only possible annoyance here is that you cannot see the number on your caller id.  However, if you look at yesterdays post you will see that you can screen calls by sending callers to voicemail and then being able to pick up while they are leaving a message.  Also if you update your contacts in GV the service will tell you if the call is from one of you contacts.  This contacts list can be imported from Outlook, Outlook express, Eudora, Apple Address Book, and a few others.

For outgoing calls it is a bit trickier.  Once you have completed all of the steps above you will have to login to your GV account.  At the top on the left hand side there is a button that says "Call."  Click on the button and a box pops up.  Just type in the number you want to call and GV will call your cell phone from your GV number.  Once that connection is made it will call the phone number that you typed into the box.  Once again this registers as a free call from the cell phone carriers that allow you to make and receive calls to specific numbers.

The question I always get after explaining this little system is, "Is it worth it?"  And the answer is always, "It depends."  If you are my dad who uses less than 20 minutes a month this is not worth the time, but if you are a heavy user who has a very large plan it could allow you to drop down one or two tiers in pricing.  This could be a savings of $40 or more per month for some people.  When I started using this strategy I saw my minute usage drop over 600 minutes on average each month.  If there were a cheaper plan out there than I already have I could switch with no worries.  Most people find that just eliminating the cost of incoming calls allows them to switch to a lower plan.  So give it a shot and happy calling!