
Buying a Google Nexus One Unlocked is a Terrible Experience - epi0Bauqu
http://www.charleshudson.net/buying-a-google-nexus-one-unlocked-is-a-terrible-experience-fix-it-is-easy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CharlesHudsonsWeblog+%28Charles+Hudson%27s+Weblog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
======
jrockway
This really has nothing to do with the Nexus One, or even Google Voice. It's
simply a restriction T-Mobile places on the kind of account he has. Yeah,
welcome to cell-phone service in the US. (I'm shocked we even have GSM
providers here at all.)

Personally, I think this problem falls completely outside the scope of Google.
He wants people calling a non-Google Voice number to get to his Google Voice
voicemail. This is a feature that has to be provided by the network, because
it needs to work when your phone is off. T-Mobile does not provide this
feature unless you pay them money. He doesn't want to pay them money, so he
doesn't get the feature.

It's an annoying arbitrary limitation (because T-Mobile's network supports
this just fine; call my "real" T-Mobile number and you get my Google Voice
voicemail), but it's not Google's fault. It's just how cell phone service
works in the US; it's based around subsidized devices or really cheap
featureless devices. Nobody has a featureful unsubsidized smartphone, so it's
not a case that the providers handle. They disable features on the cheap
subsidized phones because they want to upsell you to a subsidized phone,
guaranteeing revenue for 2 years.

Anyway, if the author is setting up a new number for this phone, he can avoid
the whole problem by only telling the new number to Google. Everyone else can
call his Google Voice number directly, and then it doesn't matter where his
real voicemail forwards to. (I stopped telling everyone my real number about 6
months ago, and now it gets no calls.)

Sadly, short of moving to another country, I don't think there's any way the
author can get what he wants. (AT&T doesn't even allow the possibility of data
use unless you have a multi-year contract.)

Edit: Since the author makes the inevitable iPhone comparison, it's worth
pointing out that "Buying an unlocked iPhone is an impossible experience."

~~~
ars
What about caller-id? Can you make it show your google voice number?

~~~
arantius
The Google Voice app on any android phone will do this.

The original post is about one really specific feature, completely under
T-Mobile's control (and restriction in this case), and has nothing to do with
Google or the Nexus or Google Voice, or anything else mentioned.

------
jonknee
It sounds like his trouble is with T-Mobile not supporting voicemail
forwarding on FlexPlay plans, not anything to do with the Nexus One or even
any unlocked phone.

It sucks, but T-Mobile not supporting call forwarding on FlexPlay plans isn't
exactly a secret, he could have easily found this out before buying the phone
(or before contacting support):

<http://support.t-mobile.com/doc/tm23888.xml>

~~~
randallsquared
If it had occurred to him to look. Without already knowing, I can't think of
any reason he should have figured out he should search for call forwarding
options on FlexPay... the default assumption would be that everything would
work fine, wouldn't it?

~~~
jonknee
Perhaps, but then after spending two minutes Googling and finding out the
network he chose didn't support a feature he wants, he could have just called
and gotten an RMA. Lesson learned and only a little time/money wasted.

I fail to see how this is the fault of his phone being unlocked, Google,
Android or even T-Mobile. No phone in the world would have done what he wanted
with the plan he got. It's like saying buying a Google Nexus One unlocked is a
terrible experience because there's no free weekend calling.

~~~
randallsquared
I agree that this has nothing to do with the phone or Google.

------
theBobMcCormick
I don't understand the point of this article. It sounds like the problem has
nothing to do with the Nexus One, and everything to do with limitations in the
TMobile pre-paid plans. Wouldn't he have the same problems trying to use
Google Voice on _any_ phone while using the TMobile pre-paid plans?

------
kylec
The author mentions that you still need a contract if you supply the device -
is this true? I thought the whole point of the Even More Plus plan was to
provide monthly service without a contract.

~~~
randallsquared
It is, but it's not exactly the same. They provide prepaid service (which Even
More Plus is), but they seem to prefer that you sign a contract.

------
Sephr
I have Google Voice forwarding working perfectly on AT&T on my Nexus One. The
problem must definitely be that the FlexPay plan has restricted voicemail, as
everyone else is saying.

------
grandalf
I was thinking that I'd be able to buy a Nexus One and just seamlessly use
Google Voice w/o having all the messy forwarding, etc. I guess not.

~~~
jrockway
Don't tell people your phone's real number. Then you won't have to forward
those calls.

~~~
grandalf
I'm talking about the sms forwarding and the way it dials an inbound call when
you use google voice to dial out... would have thought Google would merge in
google voice features so when I received the nexus one in the mail I'd "log
in" with my google credentials and the phone would then have my gv number.

~~~
jrockway
Yeah, that would be nice. But it's two clicks and 10 keypresses in the web
interface to setup a new phone, so it's not a major loss.

