The dream mobile carrier plan has finally come. Google’s Project Fi gives everyone (or those with a Nexus 6) an affordable option for their monthly smartphone service. I often dreamed that Google would do this and they finally came through. However, you might not be too excited if you’re a Google Voice user.
Based on Google’s support page, Google Voice and Project Fi don’t seem to work well together. When switching carriers, Google Voice users are used to just asking for whatever number is given to them because it really doesn’t matter since they have a Google Voice number. Once a number is given to them, they simply forward the new carrier number to their Google Voice number. Unfortunately things aren’t going to work that way with Project Fi.
If you decide to have Google assign you a new number, like you’re used to, your Google Voice number will be “released and you won’t be able to get it back.” On the flip side, if you want to use your Google Voice number with Project Fi, you will lose pretty much everything you love about Google Voice. You will no longer be able to “make or receive phone calls or access voicemail using Google Talk, Google Voice apps, or Obihai devices.” You also won’t be able to send or receive text messages on the web, nor will you be able to utilize spam filtering, call recording, call switch, conference calling on the fly, caller ID (incoming), and outgoing caller ID (anonymous Caller ID). Now if there is any good news out of this, it is that your voicemail greeting, voicemails, call history, as well as your SMS history will still be transfered to Project Fi, assuming you have rolled your Google Voice number into Hangouts.
So what if you still want to keep your Google Voice number and use Project Fi? Google’s answer is to transfer it to a different Google Voice account (Gmail address) or another carrier before you sign up for Project Fi. Assuming you transfer your Google Voice number to another Gmail account, can you still use Google Voice and Project Fi together like you normally do with other carrier phones? Google isn’t clear on this. If you have transferred your Google Voice number to another Gmail account, I guess in theory, it’s possible that you could still transfer your new Project Fi number to that Google Voice number, but we aren’t sure if Google will allow that. On top of that, you will now have a brand new Gmail address to fiddle with, which might not be the best option. I should also note that if you transfer your Google Voice number to another Gmail account, you will lose all your SMS and Hangouts history. The other option would be to open a brand new (or use another) Gmail account for Project Fi and continue to keep your Google Voice number with your existing Gmail account. Again, you have to fiddle with another Gmail account, and if Google doesn’t let you transfer the calls, than what good did that do for you?
I guess the bottom line is that Google is allowing users to keep their Google Voice number, but it appears that it’s not going to play nice with Project Fi. You have to wonder if Google will eventually phase out Voice? This very well could happen, but probably not in the near future. Project Fi is only available on the Nexus 6, and probably won’t be available beyond upcoming Nexus phones to be announced later this year. If Google ever does plan on making Project Fi a serious carrier option, it very well could be the end of Voice. If you look at Google’s perspective, there can’t be that many Voice users, so it’s not a big deal to them.
As a Google Voice user, I won’t be jumping on Project Fi anytime soon until I see what the experiences are like for other Google Voice users. If you want to see Google’s support information regarding Google Voice and Project Fi, check out their support page here.
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