Google Chat and SpeakOut | Technical service details | Consumer forum

reddleman said:

Has anyone tried Google's new calling feature to check your SpeakOut voicemail? For those who don't have a landline, this might be an easy way to avoid airtime charges for checking your voicemail.

I haven't tried it myself yet. It requires installing a plugin from Google, and I keep putting it off. But it seems like it should work.

Sounds interesting.
Can you please explain in more detail what the app is called and where you get it?
Also how it's used with your Speakout number?

Can you install it on your mobile phone?

TIA

Peter said:

The app is described here and works within the GMail interface:

http://www.google.com/chat/voice/

Thanks Peter.
I'd still like to hear from Reddleman about this and what he installed/did exactly.
When I try to install Google Voice on my phone it tells me that Google Voice is not available in Canada at this time.

The discussion is about using Google Voice to check your voice mail from your computer. for some of us there is no toll free number to call to pick up our voice mail, so we either pay airtime on our SO phones or long distance from a landline to pick up our messages.
For example the voice mail for Victoria BC is an area code 604 Vancouver number, and the voice mail for all 3 prairie provinces is an area code 403 Calgary number. In both those cases Google Voice provides a way to pick up voice mail at no charge for those of us whose home phones are not in the same area code as the VM numbers.
The Rogers 1-800 number does not work for SO in Western Canada.

RonM said:

The discussion is about using Google Voice to check your voice mail from your computer. for some of us there is no toll free number to call to pick up our voice mail, so we either pay airtime on our SO phones or long distance from a landline to pick up our messages.
For example the voice mail for Victoria BC is an area code 604 Vancouver number, and the voice mail for all 3 prairie provinces is an area code 403 Calgary number. In both those cases Google Voice provides a way to pick up voice mail at no charge for those of us whose home phones are not in the same area code as the VM numbers.
The Rogers 1-800 number does not work for SO in Western Canada.

Hi Ron,

Thanks again for your help and expertise here.
You certainly have been using cellphones a lot longer than I have!

Yes the discussion is about Google Voice and checking your voice mail from your computer.

There are many concepts and issues going on here though, many of which are not clear with me.

Let's start at the beginning.

When a voicemail is left on my cellphone I see a number to dial to retrieve it.

I have never done so yet.
I am sure I will be charged if I do.

I have picked up voicemail using my landline by calling my cellphone number (not the number given on my cellphone) keying in my password and listening to the message.

One of the things I don't understand is why a person who lives outside of the VM numbers doesn't dial their cellphone number from their landline and pick up the voicemail that way, as I do?

Now let's get into Google Voice which is extremely confusing for me at the moment.

There is Google Voice, Google Chat, Google Talk and a whole host of other confusing terminology.

I just downloaded Google Voice and installed it on my PC and can't for the life of me see how I can get into it, never mind pick up messages from Speakout!

I can start Google Talk and GMail but that's about it.

My aim was to install Google Voice on my phone and pick up my voice mail that way (via a WiFi connection).

But when I launch it on my cellphone it tells me GV is not available in Canada yet.

I can go into Google Talk and add new contacts, but this requires an e-mail address, not a tel. number.

TIA

Thanks very much Ron. I actually understood most of what you said! 🙂

RonM said:

However if I am home in Victoria and someone from Winnipeg calls me and I miss the call and they leave VM, I either have to pay the airtime to get my voice mail or call a Calgary (area code 403) number from my home phone to get my VM.

Why do you need to call a Calgary number to get your voicemail? Was it difficult for SO to provide a local number for you?

Once you install Google Chat Voice, and you are logged in to Google Mail, there will be a link on the lower left corner of your screen. It may say your account name, or it may say "Chat" with your account name and "Call Phone" under the "Chat" link. Click there until you see the "Call Phone" link and click that. A dial pad should open in the lower right corner of the screen. If Google Chat Voice installed properly on your computer, you are on your way to making your phone call.

There is absolutely no way I would have located that "Call Phone" indicator without your help here.
On my page there's a ton of information about this and that etc.
In the lower left corner there's Inbox Box, Buzz, Personal, Travel etc. etc.
Below that a green dot, to the right of that a '+' sign. And more and more stuff.

Who in their right mind would know to click on the + next to a green dot?
I mean it's not as if the green dot has writing next to it saying CALL PHONE!

Anyways I clicked on the + and this opened up Chat, with a bunch of stuff below, including Call Phone.

But I am not there yet.
I clicked on Call Phone, this opened up the dial pad window.
I entered a number to dial but it wouldn't dial. There is a "Please download voice plug-in to make the call" note just below the place you enter the number.

But I had already installed the plugin!

Well I dutifully clicked on the link and downloaded and installed the plug-in again.
And once again I was asked to re-start my browser, And once again I dutifully did so.
And once again I clicked on Call Phone which opened the dial pad window.

And once again I entered a number to dial but it wouldn't dial. There is a "Please download voice plug-in to make the call" note just below the place you enter the number.

etc. etc. etc. etc. (I think you get the picture) 🙁

Rogers only has one voice mail server for the prairie provinces. It covers area codes 204, 306, 587, 780, and 403. It is located in area code 403 which is Southern Alberta. The number itself is based in Calgary. SpeakOut don't provide anything themselves, they use what Rogers has available.

SO do provide the equivalent of a local number -- which is calling my own number from my own SO phone. That call is not free as I have to pay airtime to them but no long distance regardless of where in Canada I may be. They have no reason nor incentive to provide any free services to me or anyone else. We pay $1.25 per month to protect our account and keep the number active. That doesn't generate much revenue with which they could buy more and/or "better" services from Rogers. And as far as I'm concerned, I like the price -- if I want more complex services, I could go to Rogers or one of the other services and pay for the extras. I'm with SO for two reasons --1) the 365 day top up and 2) the relatively inexpensive service that I only use while traveling. I don't want them to add anything that will cost me more.

I'm afraid I can't help with getting the dial pad and/or Google chat application to run on your computer. I installed it on Windows XP using Firefox on one computer, and Windows7 using Firefox on another, and it works for me on both.

After reading your post and checking the forum you provided the link for, I decided to play around. The results were interesting. The application doesn't always "play nicely" with Internet Explorer. It appears to consistently work well in Firefox.

My Macbook was sitting beside me so I booted it. The chat application installed first try on it -- and once installed, it worked in each of the Safari and Firefox browsers.

Then I booted a computer running Linux Ubuntu and the app installed and worked first try in Firefox.

Getting the app to run in Internet Explorer proved to be more of a challenge. I logged in to Gmail on IE on my computer (which had the Google Chat application working in Firefox). It told me I would have to download the application once more. It took several tries with downloading and clicking the "allow IE to run this add on" bar before I was able to actually use the application. I had just installed the beta version of IE9 on the Windows 7 computer, so I tried there. I got into the same loop and it took 3 tries to get it working there too. Persistence paid off -- or maybe it is stubbornness

I use Firefox pretty much exclusively for any service that requires passwords -- like GMail. IE does some really strange things with passwords and add-ons. Firefox remembers exactly what you tell it to do from session to session and reboot to reboot. If you want it to save login information, it will -- if you say no, it doesn't. It also has a secure layer of password protection. You can set a master password to make any stored passwords secure. I do use IE for some things -- you need it for Microsoft Updates on XP, and it works better than Firefox for downloading and installing software and software updates that you intend to install. However while the ease with which IE installs software you want is useful, IE will install some stuff you don't want just as easily -- Firefox makes rouge installations more difficult.

Hi Ron.

Problem solved.
I remembered that I also have Opera installed on my desktop.

Opened Opera.
Logged into Gmail.
Hit the Call Phone button
Made the call.

It's easy when it works! 🙂

Hi Reddleman,

I'll save you some time and effort with this (if you come back soon enough).

reddleman said:

@SOMark: I don't know whether it's possible to install Google Voice Chat on a phone or not.

Yes it is possible. I did it.

Based on RonM's experiments, it sounds like your problems with not getting it to work on your phone might be caused by whatever browser your phone uses.

I was having problems getting it to work on my desktop, not my phone.

I know next to nothing about mobile browsers, but I do know there's something called "Opera Mini" on mine. If it works in Opera on your desktop, would it work in Opera Mini on your phone?

I am also using Opera Mini on my phone.
Here's the scoop. Google Voice will install on your mobile phone.
BUT.... for the moment, you can only use it in the U.S., not Canada. 🙁

This thread covered a lot of ground.
reddleman posted a question about whether he could use his computer to check his SO voice mail free if he didn't have a landline, and once he had time to download the app, he added his own answer.

The discussion expanded into ways of being able to check the voice mail and/or make other voice calls from the phone itself. It included questions about using data and especially SO Unlimited Browsing for that. (Unfortunately not.)

There has been good discussion here about using a voice application on wifi to access SO Voice Mail and potentially to make other voice calls right from the phone. Lots of us would like to do that and even more would like to do that if anyone has a free way of doing it.

I think that rather than continuing that discussion here, the whole question of voice from a phone on wifi probably is a good topic for its own thread. There are several snippets of information scattered through several threads.

Lots of people are using SpeakOut on much better phones than the basic 3 that you can get in a 7-11 store when you start with SO. Lots are using the ULB feature to squeeze more out of the browser than just browsing and e-mail at EDGE speeds. There is really good discussion in the forums about that and several forum members have helped others get their phones set up.

I am using Skype and other VOIP applications on wifi on the same phone I just use for SO voice. I don't use the SO ULB but I do use the browser and other applications while connected to wifi either at home, or at a Hotspot. There are others that are doing the same. When I have a few moments, I'll start a thread about VOIP from my phone over wifi. I can't do it for a while -- so if someone else wants to start a thread, I'll chime in later.