1y ago

Looking for a VOIP service to replace Google Fi

This may end up being a bit convoluted, so I will do my best to keep it as short as possible and to the point.

I have a US number with Google Fi, have had it for about 8 years.

This is the only reason why I still maintain that one Google account. The benefit is that I only use it when I am in the United States, and when I'm not, I just pause the service and don't get charged.

However, I feel the string need to completely eliminate Google from my life permanently.

Does anyone know of a service similar to this one? It can be an MVNO or VOIP for my phone, and I would like to port my number as well. I found "phoner", but I can't pause the service, so I would be stuck paying a bill I don't use as much or loosing my number.

If the service is private (not to be confused with anonymous, of course) even better.

24 comments

JMP.chat is your best choice for the most privacy-oriented VOIP service. Paired with the Cheogram app on FDroid, it's a great user experience. they can port numbers in and out as well. you can pay with monero/btc/eth.
I am not sure about pausing though, I would ask them what your options are.
- Do they have encryption?
  
  encryption for what exactly?
  
  Deleted
- JMP is my recommendation too. I don't think you can pause it, but the cost is so low it might not matter.
- Nice thanks
- When i tried they didn't do MMS properly. So YMMV.
  
  worked for me, send and receive
I guess my suggestion wouldn’t be useful then… I was a GrandCentral customer in 2006. When Google bought them I became a Google Voice customer and still am. It’s been convenient to have the same US numbers for 18 years. I wouldn’t run anything private through the service though.
- FYI, you can port your number to another provider. No need to stay with Google just for that.
  
  The main issue here seems to be that no other provider, voip or otherwise, allows to pause the invoicing. Fi allows it for 90 days, and if those 90 days go by, all we have to do is pause it again and get charged for the 1 day that the pause expired on.
  It's a pretty hard to beat feature, but I really want off of Google, so I'm going over every single one of the suggestions here.
Lots of VoIP services offer plans (usually pay-per-minute) so cheap that you might not need a "park" feature. A few reputable ones that serve North America: Callcentric, VoIP.ms, Anveo.
EDIT:
The cost to keep your number on such a service can be less than 1 USD per month, with all-electronic billing that allows you to pay from anywhere that has internet. With that price and convenience, many people find parking/pausing unnecessary.
If having to regularly pay any amount is the problem, note that prepaid accounts let you leave a balance in your account and not be bothered to take any action until it runs out.
When looking for pricing info, bear in mind that a phone number is commonly called a DID (America) or DDI (Europe).
- Yeah, voipms is great and there's a sms app for Android available on fdroid. It really is so cheap you won't need to pause it, and works fine with linphone or whatever sip app you want to use.
Jmp or twilio can import numbers I believe.
RingCentral had some really nice features; we used it for our business several years ago and I had considered using it as a virtual clearing house for my family to help keep our personal numbers private when signing up for things.
I had even ported a Google Voice number to RingCentral well before that process was streamlined.

24 comments