

Google Voice Integrated Into Sprint Service - acconrad
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/21/complete-integration-of-google-voice-and-50-million-sprint-customers-plus-4g-nexus-s/

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marklabedz
With the news that AT&T is buying T-Mobile, does Sprint move to position
itself as a "cool, customer-oriented" mobile service?

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nanoanderson
Brilliant maneuver by these two companies. As if I needed another reason to
wish more carriers carried the iPhone.

I look forward to Google Voice being something people understand as a feature
of their service plan rather than some mystery google product that makes
calling me more confusing than before.

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MatthewPhillips
Google needs to go ahead and buy Sprint.

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AndrewDucker
Why buy them? If you have partnerships then you can sell your product to the
entire market. If they buy Sprint then nobody has a reason to go into
partnership with them, because they'd be competing with their supplier.

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nt
I am a sprint subscriber and had switched my voice mail handling to google
voice for a couple of months while using my existing number. I found that it
was not as reliable as sprint's visual voice mail, with notifications
sometimes coming in hours after the call. Also though gv rates for
international dialing are great the quality of the connection is lacking
compared to using sprint's long distance service.

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mrkurt
Well I'm shocked. It's not often that I (as a Sprint user) get a cool new
ability before people on other networks.

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marklabedz
Google Voice Blog post: [http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/sprint-
integrate...](http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/sprint-integrates-
google-voice.html)

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mobilemonkey
Sprint landing page - www.sprint.com/googlevoice

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camiller
Interesting. I have a Google voice number and a Sprint account but there is a
question I don't see an answer to, although I haven't dug around in the fine
print yet.

If I switch my Sprint number to Google voice, are mobile to mobile calls still
in the unlimited mobile to mobile pool, or do they go into the anytime pool(in
my case 1500 shared between myself, wife and daughter)? With a nearly teenage
daughter I'd rather keep most of our calls in the unlimited mobile to mobile
pool!

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mobilemonkey
I worked on the Sprint side of this a bit, had the same question early on and
the answer I got was that it didn't change minutes of usage
calculations...so...nNo change to how numbers behave from a billing
perspective. If you're calling a mobile number and have AMA, it goes in that
bottomless bucket. If you're calling a landline, it uses Anytime minutes. Same
story for shared lines-- no change to how minutes are used.

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camiller
Thanks for the info! So if someone calls my current Google voice number which
gets forwarded to my Sprint number it would not be AMA, but if I switch my
Sprint number to Google Voice control and they call that it is still AMA, yes?

Sounds like a winner!

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mobilemonkey
yep, that's my understanding. If you actually sign up for GV as your Sprint
number, it acts just like your Sprint number. No forwarding involved.

Also, you get to keep your GV number for..I believe 6 months is the plan. It
behaves the same way as your Sprint number during that time. That's my
understanding right now anyway.

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2mur
Wow. Just when I was thinking about looking for greener pastures, Sprint does
something seemingly user-friendly for once.

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baggachipz
Same. I was pumped about Verizon LTE until I saw the insane caps they're
putting on usage. This plus Nexus S 4G + unlimited means I'll probably make
the switch when my contract is up.

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bdb
This plus the 4G Nexus S is going to make it really hard to hang onto my old
T-Mobile/Nexus One combo. No equivalent of my T-Mobile no-contract post-paid
service, though.

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bmelton
This is an interesting move, of course -- most of the carriers seem to hate
the un-monitorable things, like Google Voice, that we like so much.

Conversely, there's an interesting opportunity for Sprint here to catch all
the AT&T haters that will be leaving T-Mobile as they get acquired. I
personally haven't had much luck with either AT&T or Sprint in the DC area, so
I guess I'm Verizon-bound, but there is, perhaps, an opportunity for someone
to catch some chum.

