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Comment by jdoliner | Hacker News Reader

If Google does this it may be the thing that finally convinces me to move my messaging and phone away from their ecosystem. Hangouts has kinda been the thing holding my experience together as I adopted Google voice early and a lot of people only have that number, biggest mistake of my life right there. We'll see though, talk is cheap and I'm lazy, so most likely I just tolerate the abuse.

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If it helps, I moved away from Google Voice a while ago by porting my number. Went to Verizon, got a new number and got a iPhone running. Then called Verizon and ported my google voice number onto the new number. Google asked for $10 for porting out. I happily obliged. My phone number moved over without any pauses in service. I’ve been using iMessage/SMS ever since and it works wonders.

Edit: spelling

I had ported my phone number to Google Voice back when I was using Android phones. My wife insists on Apple products and eventually I switched to an iPhone myself. I ported my number back out but set up another Google Voice number.

Now, if I miss a call, it forwards to the GV number. So I get transcriptions (via email) which aren't perfect but better than anything else I've seen.

9 times out of 10, I don't need to call the person back. It's a reminder, it's somebody I'll see later that day, etc.

I do wish that GV would not send me notices that I have voicemail when the person (or more likely a computer) hung up when they heard voicemail.

The GV number is also useful for things that insist on SMS where I want a secure number. No way for a person to go into a store and insist on getting my number transferred to their phone.

There have been no major updates to Voice in a while (thankfully), but lots of marketing and buzz around Project Fi. I can't help but think that Google will kill Google Voice in the future. Google Voice is integrated with Hangouts as well, which means one of those features will go away, assuming the OP is true. I love using Voice for the same reasons you listed out, but I dread when Google decide to make a change in this space, I'll be very disappointed.

I don't see Google voice going away since it's the service they use for the home phone add-on with fiber.

The point of this shutdown (and the Google+ shutdown) is that the services are going away for consumers, ie. moving to completely focus on GSuite integration. Google voice is still in the "Additional Google services" category and doesn't have GSuite integration beyond call-in Hangouts, so I doubt they will abandon their fiber G Voice customers any time soon.

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