Who says you can't get something of value for free? VOIP ANYONE?

[mountainbikermark]

Folks, in my exploration today for a way to make calls without using up my finite limited calling minutes in my infinite unlimited data plan (Nationwide Calling 1,400 minutes per month at $70 with Unlimited Data - a grandfathered plan no longer available with Verizon), I was looking for a way to make VOIP calls, but not use Google Hangouts, Google Voice, Skype or even some of the other tools such as ooVoo, Tango, Line or the like (none really work this way). Well, I found a Holy Grail.

Introducing GrooVe IP, Free Internet (AND WIFI) calling to and from any phone number and, yes, it's completely free.

GrooVe IP Lite Free Calls - Android Apps on Google Play

GrooVe IP Lite - Free Calls

Voice without Minutes!

Turn your Android device into a free phone. Get a free US phone number that will be able to receive calls from anywhere in the world. In addition, you will be able to make unlimited calls to US and Canadian phone numbers for free using Voice over IP (VoIP) technology. You get all of this without using any of your cellular minutes. GrooVe IP works on any android device, mobile phone or tablet, and allows you to make calls using the device’s data (WiFi or mobile data) connection.

GrooVe IP has a separate dialer that can be used to make calls. Alternatively, the native dialer, call-log, contacts, and favorite functionality can be shared between the phone and app on a call-by-call basis.

One of the features I especially enjoy is that it's "Clandestine", meaning it is a totally separate phone number from your carrier's issued phone nnumber, and you get to choose from a list of numbers in the area code(s) you enter when enrolling. Also, since it is not tied to your cellular service, the calls do NOT appear on your primary number call log, not on your phone bill, and (unlike Hangouts), not even in your Google history. In other words, it's like a burner phone without carrying a separate phone.

From a person whom I was on a call with while typing this, they said that the sound quality was good, on par with standard phone service. Of course, it also works with your Bluetooth headset, so again, it's virtually the same as your regular phone. Even more exciting, if you have an older smartphone that you have since taken out of service, and you have Wi-Fi connectivity but no mobile plan, you can use this app to convert it to a free, full-featured working phone. If you are traveling overseas, you can take your device with you and make/receive calls for free on WiFi without paying any carrier roaming charges.

One last BIG discovery... If you get a NORMAL Cellular call while on a GrooVe IP call, it announces it in your ear, but the other party doesn't hear it. You can take that other call, the GrooVe IP call is placed on silent hold, and when you hang up the Cellular call, your GrooVe IP call is automatically rejoined. WOW!

Check it out!! Pretty cool.

It's also tablet compatible.
Do you know if you can forward your Groove number to another phone number? That'd be awesome for when out of Wi-Fi range or using a standalone smartwatch.
Support Our Troops !!!
<><
Beast Mode 4

 

[FoxKat]

Unfortunately I cannot get this application to connect for me. When you were offered choices for a phone number, were any in your city? Or even a city close to your location? The phone numbers that I had to choose from were in a city 45 minutes away. I don't know if that may have something to do with it or not. Waiting to hear from the developers.

Sent from my Droid Turbo with Tapatalk

The number locale shouldn't matter. Mine isn't local either.

 

[FoxKat]

It's also tablet compatible.
Do you know if you can forward your Groove number to another phone number? That'd be awesome for when out of Wi-Fi range or using a standalone smartwatch.
Support Our Troops !!!
<><
Beast Mode 4

I'm not sure either way but if so it would be a great feature.

 

[AvaMichele]

Unfortunately I cannot get this application to connect for me. When you were offered choices for a phone number, were any in your city? Or even a city close to your location? The phone numbers that I had to choose from were in a city 45 minutes away. I don't know if that may have something to do with it or not. Waiting to hear from the developers.

Sent from my Droid Turbo with Tapatalk

Well, I don't know what happened, but once I left my house and drive across town, I'm now signed in! [emoji2]

Sent from my Droid Turbo with Tapatalk

 

[mountainbikermark]

I'm not sure either way but if so it would be a great feature.

I'm going to put it on my Note8 at some point this weekend and test out the forwarding.
I've got this crazy idea I'm going to give a whirl to attempt leaving my phone at home and take the tablet instead. If I need a bigger screen than the watch, the Note8 and see if I can reverse tether a Wi-Fi connection from the watch to the tablet for Tapatalk surfing. If it works at some point I might port my phones number to my watch and dump 1 line of service. If I can do my usual "out of the box experiment" mindset and save money each month at the same time?......

Support Our Troops !!!
<><
Beast Mode 4

 

[FoxKat]

I'm going to put it on my Note8 at some point this weekend and test out the forwarding.
I've got this crazy idea I'm going to give a whirl to attempt leaving my phone at home and take the tablet instead. If I need a bigger screen than the watch, the Note8 and see if I can reverse tether a Wi-Fi connection from the watch to the tablet for Tapatalk surfing. If it works at some point I might port my phones number to my watch and dump 1 line of service. If I can do my usual "out of the box experiment" mindset and save money each month at the same time?......

Support Our Troops !!!
<><
Beast Mode 4

Wow, that's quite a creative endeavor. If it works be sure to document the process so it can effectively be repeated.

Good luck.

 

[FoxKat]

I'm going to put it on my Note8 at some point this weekend and test out the forwarding.
I've got this crazy idea I'm going to give a whirl to attempt leaving my phone at home and take the tablet instead. If I need a bigger screen than the watch, the Note8 and see if I can reverse tether a Wi-Fi connection from the watch to the tablet for Tapatalk surfing. If it works at some point I might port my phones number to my watch and dump 1 line of service. If I can do my usual "out of the box experiment" mindset and save money each month at the same time?......

Support Our Troops !!!
<><
Beast Mode 4

OK folks. I HAVE GREAT NEWS. You CAN forward your GrooVe IP number! It's done with a second app that you install from another service provider called RingTo. RingTo allows you to better manage your GrooVe IP number, and along with Call Forwarding it gives you Voice Mail, and even allows certain chosen calls to be "blocked" which then go automatically to Voice Mail rather than ringing to the phone.

So I installed it, and set it up to forward my GrooVe IP number to my desk phone. Then I dialed my GrooVe IP number and it asked me to enter it again. When I did, my desk phone began to ring. I put the outgoing call on hold, picked up the forwarded incoming call and heard the music on hold for my company.

Here's how it works;

Setting up call forwarding with RingTo. RingTo Community

For Android...Log into your RingTo account on the Android app and select the "My Numbers" tab under the menu stack.



Select the RingTo number of your choice to configure call forwarding settings. Select "edit number".



Activate the call forwarding button to "On" to forward calls. Customize your voicemail settings by selecting the number of seconds you want your phone to ring before directing the call to voicemail. You may also create a custom voice greeting by recording your voice or choosing the default answer setting. SMS auto-reply is also a feature you may choose to enable.



Specify which number you want calls forwarded to in the "enter number" field. Now you are all set to begin receiving forwarded calls from your RIngTo number!



On the website, you may select up to three numbers you would like calls forwarded to.





This is often helpful in the case of forwarding a landline number to multiple phones. You also have the option to select which number you want to appear when forwarded calls ring your phone: The number of the person calling you, or your RingTo number. Both of these features are only options that appear on the website version of RingTo. They will not appear in the app.





From the IOS app, log into RingTo and select the gear icon in the top righthand corner. Select "My Numbers" and which number you'd like to enable for call forwarding.







Enable the call forwarding option for your RingTo number and enter up to four other numbers you want these calls forwarded to. Hit "Done" when finished to save the settings.

 

[kodiak799]

So I installed it, and set it up to forward my GrooVe IP number to my desk phone. Then I dialed my GrooVe IP number and it asked me to enter it again. When I did, my desk phone began to ring. I put the outgoing call on hold, picked up the forwarded incoming call and heard the music on hold for my company.

I've been doing that for years with my GV number. I've not heard complaints of lag.

Like I said, hangouts does this fully integrated with GV, but I had issues (most likely user error). My issue was hangouts would always come to the front with an incoming call, even to my cell number...that's when it didn't insist on making itself my default dialer. Maybe I should have tried turning off GV forwarding to my cell. Or maybe the delay/issue was hangouts trying to hand-off a cell call to VoIP.

Anyway, too bad my Rezound gave up the ghost or I could have tried this. With newer digital handsets having bluetooth, you could have a totally free home VoIP with the base connected to your wifi-only smartphone (or tablet).

 

[FoxKat]

I've been doing that for years with my GV number. I've not heard complaints of lag.

Like I said, hangouts does this fully integrated with GV, but I had issues (most likely user error). My issue was hangouts would always come to the front with an incoming call, even to my cell number...that's when it didn't insist on making itself my default dialer. Maybe I should have tried turning off GV forwarding to my cell. Or maybe the delay/issue was hangouts trying to hand-off a cell call to VoIP.

Anyway, too bad my Rezound gave up the ghost or I could have tried this. With newer digital handsets having bluetooth, you could have a totally free home VoIP with the base connected to your wifi-only smartphone (or tablet).

I am not sure how Hangouts does this integrated with Google Voice, but I suspect it may have some of the benefits but may be missing the ones following.

The reason I chose to use GrooVe IP is not due to any lag. I wanted a fully private phone number, one which doesn't have a call history that is published on a website that is easily accessable such as Google. Google Voice has a full history of all calls, incoming, out going, etc. Also Google Voice still does use your primary phone number to route the calls to/from, so I still use phone minutes with Google Voice. I wanted something completely disconnected from Google Voice, Google proper, and even my Telcom's phone minutes and phone call logs.

If you have a phone service like mine, where my minutes are limited but the data is unlimited, then paying for the call minutes becomes a real issue. I know that most plans now offer free calls and texts and charge by the GB for data, so for those of you in that boat it may not provide this appeal, however the other appeals above are still there.

 

[kodiak799]

Also Google Voice still does use your primary phone number to route the calls to/from, so I still use phone minutes with Google Voice.

Not true. GV will forward to VoIP services.

 

[FoxKat]

Not true. GV will forward to VoIP services.

OK, maybe I'm not understanding.

I have Google Voice, and the only way I am aware of being able to use it is through my cellular phone number. Are you saying I could forward my Google Voice number to the GrooVe IP number? I am not at all surprised and in fact completely expecting that to be true. I wasn't at all disputing that fact.

What I was saying is that Google Voice still has a full call history tied to my Google account, something I am NOT pleased about.

I wanted the equivalent of a "burner phone number" that is still tied to my cell phone (rather than carrying a burner phone) but doesn't require the call to be routed to the actual cell phone number registered to my calling plan, and so doesn't use phone plan minutes. Perhaps that clears up the confusion?

 

[kodiak799]

What I was saying is that Google Voice still has a full call history tied to my Google account, something I am NOT pleased about.

I wanted the equivalent of a "burner phone number" that is still tied to my cell phone (rather than carrying a burner phone) but doesn't require the call to be routed to the actual cell phone number registered to my calling plan, and so doesn't use phone plan minutes. Perhaps that clears up the confusion?

Just create a new google account for the number. Problem solved.

 

[FoxKat]

Just create a new google account for the number. Problem solved.

Yeah, that is one solution, and I've already done that, but again how do I receive phone calls on the phone without them being routed to my main phone number. That's the other kicker. I don't want to use the cellular minutes I pay for to make calls.

 

[kodiak799]

Yeah, that is one solution, and I've already done that, but again how do I receive phone calls on the phone without them being routed to my main phone number.

Hangouts

 

[FoxKat]

OK, so I guess I was totally misunderstanding and thank you for clarifying. I am to use a new Google account, one that I create solely for the purpose of having another Google Voice phone number. I get that. Then I am to set up Google Voice to use Hangouts as the dialer and this gets me away from my cellular phone number. Alright, so that solves one problem. This gives me 100% cellular phone number free VOIP service.

Interesting.

Only three last problems I can potentially see with this;

First, how do I remain connected to Hangouts under the new "incognito" Google ID, and still remain connected to Hangouts under my public Google ID at the same time? I can't run two instances of Hangouts at once. I can have more than one Google ID in Hangouts, but , and can only toggle between the two IDs at any one time. I get alerts on the Hangouts but it seems only on the one I am logged into at that time.

Second, what if I don't want any phone call logging at all? Google Voice automatically logs ALL calls to the Google ID that it's tied to. For me that would be undesirable.

Third, how do I stay logged into both Google Voice numbers, the one I already use to reduce dialed call minutes through Friends & Family, and the new "Incognito" number? It seems you can only be logged into one Google Voice number on the phone in "Voice" at once.