Google Voice replaces my AT&T/iPhone Visual Voice Mail

AT&T coverage is so poor for my iPhone in our area that many times I have no service when I am at the office. To top this off, AT&T has some problems with the iPhone Visual Voice Mail. I and others have noticed that it may take a week for the visual indicator to show on the phone that I have a voice mail waiting. So I get neither the call (so no missed call indicator) nor a notice that I have voice mail waiting. I have even gone so far as to appologize in my voice mail greeting that I will check for new voice mail at least once a day.

Well, I have found what appears to be the perfect solution. I received my Google Voice number a couple months ago but have not done much with it except to give it to a few people. But I started hearing reports of folks setting up their phones so that all missed calls went to Google Voice. This sounded like the solution to my problem. Google Voice can be set up to send a text message to my iPhone whenever a voice mail gets left and I have yet to have a text message get lost. But it gets better! Google Voice doesn’t just take a message — it transcribes the voice mail and texts the message to you! It does a pretty good job of transcribing the messages, not 100% mind you, but close enough to see if it is urgent or can wait.

Here are the steps I followed based on instructions left by ‘Hootsama’ on the Google Voice Forum and by Josh at Colossally Abundant:

Note: Do not change any settings on your iPhone itself. If you forward calls on your iPhone then you will, of course, never ever receive a call on the phone.

All of the programming codes are standard GSM forwarding codes used by AT&T on all their phones. Most GSM phones require a single * to put them into ‘GSM command mode’. The iPhone reserves the * for its own command lines so to use GSM commands you must enter a 2nd *. Therefore all the normal * GSM codes shown in the instructions below start with **.

1. Forwarding Unanswered Calls:
   1. Enter **61{GVN}11*20# then hit Dial (Replace {GVN} with your 10 digit Google Voice Number)
   2. The iPhone screen will darken and provide you feedback telling you that it is now forwarded
2. Forwarding Busy Or Declined Calls:
   1. Enter **67{GVN}11# then hit Dial (Replace {GVN} with your 10 digit Google Voice Number)
   2. The iPhone screen will darken and provide you feedback telling you that it is now forwarded
3. Forwarding When Phone is Off, In Airplane Mode, or No Service:
   1. Enter **62{GVN}11# then hit Dial (Replace {GVN} with your 10 digit Google Voice Number)
   2. The iPhone screen will darken and provide you feedback telling you that it is now forwarded

These three ‘rules’ need to be set up correctly so that your voicemails get sent to Google Voice. If any of these are not set up then those messages would go to the default AT&T visual voicemail. Try calling your phone now and double check that it all works.

If you need to END All Call Forwarding:

1. Enter #004# then hit Dial
2. The iPhone screen will darken and provide you feedback that it is now forwarded

I can now continue to use my regular cell phone number but know that all my voice mail will be handled by Google Voice. I can listen to voice mail the old fashioned way by dialing my Google Voice number but why would I do that? Google Voice sends me a text message with the transcript for every voicemail and if I want I can go online to Google Voice on my computer or phone to view and manage the messages. It is even possible to have the voice mail recording and transcription sent to my gmail account by setting up one of the Google Labs options.

Maybe some day I will use my Google Voice number as my primary phone number, but until then, I have the best of both worlds!