I am planning on buying an unlocked nexus one phone and using at&t with it as tmobile has little to no coverage in my area. Is there any way I can get a data only plan from at&t and use my google voice account to handle calls sms and voicemail? If so, would i still be able to make outgoing calls? and how would i go as to setting this up?
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May 4th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
I don’t know what AT&T allows, but setting that up would be a bit tricky, though entirely possible.
For SMS and Voicemail, you simply use your Google Voice number as your primary number and have the voicemails and SMS sent to you by e-mail (or check and send them in the Google Voice App).
Google Voice doesn’t currently offer VOIP, but they bought Gizmo, which can work with GV to creat a VOIP system, with the likelihood that they are adding that functionality natively. If you don’t already have a Gizmo account, you can’t sign up for one until Google re-opens it as part of Voice, like when they bought Grand Central to use to create Voice in the first place.
There are plenty of other services though, which will allow VOIP on a cell phone. That includes Skype. Skype has a plan that works over 3G. Use your Skype number to connect to Google Voice.
Unfortunately, delivering voice of IP at 3G speeds doesn’t get the greatest call quality. You should get good call quality when using a wifi connection, but your 3G calls will not be great.
There was a review of these systems in the New York Times a few weeks ago, if you look for it.
Good luck with this though.
Also, keep in mind that AT&T has terrible 3G coverage in most of the country. If you plan to go anywhere other than major cities (such as driving between major cities), or anywhere not near the coasts, you won’t be able to use 3G. Also, another poster suggested you can’t use AT&T’s 3G with the Nexus One. I don’t know anything about that, but it’s certainly another concern about using AT&T for this purpose. If you’re using the older network, you’re call quality will be terrible on VOIP, if you can even make and sustain a connection.
May 4th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Google Voice will NOT work on a “data” only setup of your Nexus One phone.
When you make or receive phone calls via Google Voice, all calls are being routed through Google on the voice channel. They act as a middle-man, this is not a VOIP service like Skype or Vonage that uses the data channel to carry your voice conversations.
Only your email and SMS via Google Voice will be carried over the “data” network, not your actual voice calls.
If you plan to use the Nexus One on AT&T, be aware that you will NOT have 3G data access – the Nexus One does not use the same frequency that T-Mobile uses… this means that you will only have EDGE data access.