Sprint's Google Voice integration is a bloody nightmare

May 6, 2011 11:35 AM
Tom Cheredar

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

When Sprint announced it was working with Google to offer seamless integration of Google Voice for mobile phones on its network, it seemed like a win-win situation. But barely three days after integration support went live and its clear that everyone is losing — most of all, Sprint customers.

Everything that made Google Voice so appealing has become unavailable for some Sprint subscribers who have attempted to integrate their accounts.

Problems those subscribers have encountered include crippled Google Voice accounts, losing the ability to make or receive phone calls (and SMS messages), security breaches to voicemail and expensive international calling fees (that use Sprint’s rate instead of Google’s). Some can’t activate GV at all, but considering the mess integration is causing that seems more like a blessing than a problem.

What’s worse still is that if you are suffering from GV integration problems, Sprint customer service reps will direct you to the Google Voice Forum, which Google really isn’t acknowledging at this point in time. If you fall under one of these confirmed subscribers or are just someone who relies on their phone for more than just data, it’s probably best to hold off on any integration plans until things have been patched up.

According to Engadget, the problems stem from a failure to correctly issue unique access codes that grant your phone the authority to access things like voicemail and Google Voice. The blame seems to be shared by both human and computers at this point.

But regardless of how these problems are happening, it’s pretty clear that neither Google nor Sprint did enough error testing to ensure a successful launch.

The integration was intended to boost the number of Google Voice users, give Sprint an edge over other carriers and grant Sprint customers access to all the great benefits of using Google Voice without the drawback of having to reroute all calls through a Google utility number.

Instead, everything backfired and may even result in turning people off of Sprint and Google Voice in favor of something more reliable.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7K6X7Z7HURJPCI6BHDJXGSUDYA Wade

It's interesting that the overwhelming feedback to that article has been how happy users are with the service.
http://profiles.google.com/nanstr7 Nancy Brandes

I am intergrated now I think. My mess has been fixed I do show my gv being my cell number. I had asked cs if I needed to have my phone take all calls (send and receive) though google voice and he said not to use the app because they are charging for the call when it is cell to cell. I know this is not suppose to happen and he said he agreed. He did say that he has seen issues with that. I love the google voice but I which my voice mail would go to my visual voice mail which he said can not happen. Is this true does anyone know?
jbelkin

Typical google – if their engineers can makeit work at theirlabs, they deem it working and release it. Great for wonky geeks but for 97% a wonky work in progress much like google docs, android or buzz.