Google Chat and SpeakOut | Page 2 | Technical service details | Consumer forum

Hello darryl its good to hear from another refugee from Winterpeg. I actually llived in Western Manitoba for most of my life followed by 12 years in Winnipeg.

The easy question first. You said:

unless Google's shuffling you back out, as soon as you hit google.com/voice.. can someone clear that up for me?

Once you have a Google Voice account set up, you can log into it from a Canuck IP address -- you just can't use one to create an account. There is also some bad news for your trip:

You said;

FYI, sign up for Google Voice, integrate it with your gmail Chat, and then reroute your SO # through it -- you can end up making calls through a consolidated phone environment. I'm already doing it with three different phone numbers in three different area codes in the US (I travel a lot for work). You can also change your VM settings such that you can push ALL of your voicemail into a single google voice account.

Unfortunately, you can't forward/connect Google Voice to a phone on any Canadian Area Code except 403. I've tried with 204 and 250.

Any Google Voice incoming number will be in the USA (as yours is). If you want to consolidate that Google Voice phone number and all your phones, you can do it as you describe as long as all the numbers are in US area codes -- or 403 which is Southern Alberta and Calgary.

You can forward and/or integrate Google Voice to a Calgary number and then forward that to another number in Canada -- that forwarding might be free or it might not. I have a Google Voice number in area Code 360 (Washington State) I have a Gizmo5 number and a freephoneline Calgary number as my consolidated numbers from Google Voice. I then have my Calgary phone forwarded to my area code 204 SO cell phone. I can't forward it to my home phone in Victoria BC as freephoneline don't include Victoria as a free calling location. I can forward my Gizmo5 number to any North American phone and it will cost me 1 cent per minute for the forwarding.

It was a lot of work for very little gain for me -- it was fun trying all the permutations.

I have family in Winnipeg and Brandon so my SO phone is what I use when I travel there. The 365 day top up means that I only have to top up once a year and i can just take the phone and go. If i need time in Manitoba I can duck into a 7-11 there. The fact that I can call any Area Code 204 number as local airtime even when at home in Victoria just adds to the appeal. I sold the junker SO phone within days of getting my service and have been using the SIM in smart phones since that time. I currently have it in a Nokia E71 which gives me free turn by turn voice guided GPS that doesn't need a data connection, and Skype and Gizmo5 any time I can connect to a wifi network. Winnipeg airport unfortunately doesn't have free wifi.

Check out Used Winnipeg and/or the craigslist cell listings for the 'peg. there are often SO phones or SIM cards on there. If not, you can duck into a 7-11 as soon as you get to Manitoba and grab a phone -- the basic one is free with a $100 airtime purchase for the month of September (check here) Once you have the phone, you can sell it on usedwinnipeg and keep your SIM. I know that is complicated if you are traveling -- could someone in the family help you set that up? There are no SO phones on usedwinnipeg or craigslist tonight -- I have seen them there other times.

Gizmo5 is/was a free service like Skype that used Open Source Software standards and SIP Protocols to connect users.

The system is very similar to Skype. Calls between Gizmo5 users are free, calls out to the old POTS cost money. Up until Google bought Gizmo5, the rates to call out were similar to Skype Out calls. Once Google took over, the outbound rates for North America were reduced to 1 cent per minute. However only existing users are able to access the system. I'm sure a lot of the technology from Gizmo5 is what makes Google Voice and Google Voice Chat work.

I started with Gizmo when I started with Skype. I found that the early versions of Gizmo were actually more stable than the early versions of Skype. As things improved, that equalized.

Gizmo assign a SIP number that can call to and from huge numbers of other SIP systems. Several SIP services have "call in" numbers in cities all over the world. There is a long list of inbound numbers at SIP Broker. Using Winnipeg as an example, I would dial 1-204-480-4085 to get to the SIP system and then dial 1-747-mygizmo5number to call my Gizmo5 phone. That "phone" can be a desktop application on my computer, a smartphone, a VOIP adaptor like the ones Vonage, Primus, Shaw etc. use for their "Internet Phones" and/or a large number of possibilities.

Any discussion of Gizmo5 becomes a bit futile because if you weren't already signed up when Google arrived, you can't sign up. I'm guessing that when next we see Gizmo5 ready to accept new sign ups in Canada, it will be called Google Voice