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Re: Hangouts app: duplicate rings on inbound calls.

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The Real Bev wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>
> I have a google voice number, which is connected to/with 'hangouts' and 
> I have the Hangouts Dialer.  The only time I've ever actually used 
> hangouts is to see if it works.  Marginally from public wifi hotspots, 
> fine 3 feet from my router.

Cellular signal strength is very weak at my home.  That means many times
I cannot make outbound calls.  It also means I will lose inbound call: a
caller will call, I won't hear any ringing, and the caller gets pushed
to voicemail instead of immediately talking to me.  On the other hand,
my private wifi signal strength is very strong so those calls are very
reliable.
 
> The only reason to have a GV number is that it's 
> free.  Why would anyone choose to pay for a service normally obtainable 
> at no cost?

https://support.google.com/voice/answer/115063?hl=en
Use of carrier minutes
When you use Google Voice on your mobile phone, domestic and
international calls will use the standard minutes from your cell phone
plan. Your call will be routed through a U.S.-based direct access
number.

That is why you need to get the Hangouts *Dialer* which uses wifi to get
free calls presuming the wifi hotspot is free.  Yes, the GV number is
free (unless you port in your old number) and the GV account usage is
free.  But the GV app does not make wifi calls on your smartphone.  You
need a wifi dialer for free VOIP and use the GV account with it to have
calls focus on that as your phone number.

In fact, if you configure the Google Voice app to always use your Google
Voice, the way that is accomplished is by have your smartphone call via
cellular service one of Google's Voice service hubs.  Instead of the
dialer showing you the person you intended to call, you will see a GV
hub's number.  So, for example, when using the GV app (so my outbound
call will show my GV number to the callee), I will see the GV hub listed
as to where I am dialing.  Could be a GV forwarding number in
Pennsylvania, or another in South Carolina, or somewhere else.  Instead
of seeing the callee's phone number (the one that I want to call), the
dialer will show that I'm going to a GV hub's number.  My call is routed
through the GV hub so it can modify the CID data to have it look like
the call originated from my GV number instead of my smartphone's actual
phone number from my cell phone provider.

> If there were any possibility of hangouts switching calls to my cell I'd 
> discontinue it immediately.

From further testing, it appears the Hangouts Dialer becomes completely
unusable if wifi is disabled.  With no wifi, the Google Hangouts Dialer
cannot get inbound calls via wifi nor can it make outbound calls via
wifi.  That is itself the reason for the doubled notifications: there
isn't a meld between the cellular and wifi communication channels making
them look like one pipe.  So I get the wifi dialer telling me of a new
inbound call via wifi along with the cell phone dialer telling of a new
inbound call via cellular.

The phones you add to your GV account are contacted via landlines or
cellular services (landlines to telcos with the VOIP switch).  The GV
account is free.  The number is free if you use the one they give to
you.  The calls forwarded through the GV account are not free.  Those
calls get forwarded to your phones using whatever telco or cell service
they employ, and you pay for those access services for your phones.

Wifi might be free but then the GV account doesn't use that when
forwarding calls to the phones you added to your GV account.  If you
only want [free] wifi calling to your phone, you need to remove or
disable that phone you added to your GV account.  You don't want your GV
account using regular telco or cellular services to connect to your
phone(s) if you want only free wifi calling.  That is why one of the
suggested workarounds is to remove/disable your phone in your GV account
(so it doesn't connect to your phone) and only use the Hangouts Dialer
which only supports VOIP (wifi calls).  With that setup, the only way to
get incoming calls through your GV number is to use their wifi dialer.  

I don't know about your area but in mine there are fewer wifi hotspots
with less coverage and it is spotty (a spot here, a spot there, and
often without overlap) versus the a smooth transition in overlapped
coverage between cell towers.  I *do* want calls forwarded through my GV
number to use cellular to reach my phone because - other than at home -
cellular is more reliable than wifi.  It is only because cellular is
weak at my home and where wifi is strong that I looked into how to add
wifi calling to my smartphone.

I use Google Voice so I have just ONE phone number to dole out to
friend, family, coworkers, businesses, or anyone else to whom I want to
divulge my phone number.  That one GV number calls *all* my phones.  I
don't have to tell all those callers that my home is this number, my
work is that number, my smartphone is a different number, my flip phone
is another number, and yadda yadda.  Just one phone number for all of
them.  In fact, I usually don't even know what are my cell phone numbers
and usually I have to check what is my home phone (VOIP through my ISP).
I don't need to know what they are.  I don't give those out.  I just use
my one long-time phone number that I've had for over 40 years.  Everyone
that calls me often already has that number memorized or, well, the last
4 digits so they know it's me calling rather than have to rely on a
contacts list for lookup (which presumes their phone has a contacts list
since lots of callees have just dumb simple phones but they do have
Caller ID).  I grew weary of always having to port my number when I
change geographical location or change phone providers (telco or cell).
Having one number for one phone made it inconvenient when I started
adding more phones for others to contact me: home phone, second home
phone, work phones (1 desk, 1 lab), started with a flip phone, added a
smartphone, and now have a 2nd smartphone.  I really don't want to be
telling all my callers about 5, 6, or more phone number at which they
can reach me.  Just one number that is always the same to call however
many phones that will currently reach me.

Think about what a nuisance it would be if at every computer you got to
use that you had a different e-mail address.  At your home computer, you
would have one personal e-mail address.  On another home computer, you
had another e-mail address.  At work (assuming they let you connect to
your personal e-mail service), you would have another e-mail address.
At a different computer and maybe several at work, each would have a
different personal e-mail address.  When you used the computer at a
resort while travelling you would have another e-mail address.  That's
now you how do e-mail.  You have one or a fixed set of email addresses
to which you can connect from ANYWHERE.  Being mobile or just having
multiple places I occupy at a time doesn't mean I want a different
e-mail contact everywhere I go.  The same for a phone number.

I can dole out just ONE personal phone number no matter what is my
current situation regarding how many phones, what type of phones, or
where they are located.  I started with Google Voice because the
*account* (or their service) was free, not because calls forwarded
through them were free to me.  My ISP (Comcast) finally improved their
voice service to include many of the same features as Google Voice but I
get no advantage an only added expense (to port my old number to them)
by switching to the PBX voice features of my ISP.  So I'll just stick
with the PBX features of Google Voice until Google decides to terminate
that experiment.  So I'm sticking with one GV number to forward to all
my phones (whether that be via landlines, cellular, or wifi).  Family
members that have a Comcast account have been setup to use Comcast's PBX
voice feature to call that one number that then forwards via landline,
cellular, or wifi to all their phones, and they can port their old phone
number to their Comcast voice account so that one old and well known
number does all the forwarding.  So, like me, the only have to remember
one number to dole out to callers, not a slew of them for each and every
phone they have.

It looks like the melding of landline, cellular, and wifi is not yet
completely transparent.  The Hangouts Dialer only supports wifi (inbound
and outbound).  The Google Voice app only supports cellular.  My
smartphone natively only supports cellular (with hardware that other
apps can use for VOIP via wifi).  I'd like one dialer that would meld
them all together so I get just one notification for an inbound call no
matter over what channel the call arrived.  Still seems this is evolving
but not yet totally transparent.

So, for now, I'd like to figure out how to keep the Phone app when the
cellular call comes in from my GV account from oblitering the Hangouts
Dialer when the same call comes in via wifi.  If the call comes in via
wifi, I'd like to pick up the call using that communications channel.
Alas, the Phone app step atop the Hangouts Dialer's screen and I cannot
use the Recent button to toggle back to the Hangout Dialer's screen.  So
when the cellular-based call comes in, the Phone app appears and I'm
stuck taking the incoming call via cellular.  I only have 2-3 rings when
the Hangouts Dialer first appears for the incoming call to pick it up
that way before the Phone app for the cellular channel gets in the way.

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Thread

Hangouts app: duplicate rings on inbound calls. VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2016-08-08 02:13 -0500
  Re: Hangouts app: duplicate rings on inbound calls. VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2016-08-08 04:51 -0500
    Re: Hangouts app: duplicate rings on inbound calls. VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2016-08-08 05:08 -0500
      Re: Hangouts app: duplicate rings on inbound calls. The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2016-08-08 08:51 -0700
        Re: Hangouts app: duplicate rings on inbound calls. VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2016-08-08 12:16 -0500
          Re: Hangouts app: duplicate rings on inbound calls. The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2016-08-08 14:16 -0700
            Re: Hangouts app: duplicate rings on inbound calls. nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2016-08-08 17:33 -0400
            Re: Hangouts app: duplicate rings on inbound calls. VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2016-08-09 01:12 -0500
  Re: Hangouts app: duplicate rings on inbound calls. VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> - 2016-08-23 02:56 -0500

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