I have used Google Voice for years and generally like it, but an increasing number of businesses are no longer accepting it as a valid phone number to call or text. I haven't started migration away from it yet, though.
Businesses who validate phone numbers often use an API (like Twilio Lookup or one of the many, many other services) to check for VoIP numbers and automatically reject them most of the time. Unfortunately, lots of VoIP is used in fraud, so the will often just reject them out of hand. If this is happening, none of the other "virtual" number services will work and you'll want to get a cheap eSIM.
This year I finally decided to start using my non-google voice number to take advantage of the much better SMS/MMS/RCS options. Google Voice has just obviously stagnated over the years with almost zero new features. The new automatic spam call answering screener I believe is also not supported on Google Voice which is very ironic, you would think Google Voice would be the perfect place to implement this!
Just another case of extend and extinguish by Google -- they acquired Grand Central many years ago to create Google Voice but then never really took it anywhere.
Out of curiosity, why do you ask?
I have used Google Voice for years and generally like it, but an increasing number of businesses are no longer accepting it as a valid phone number to call or text. I haven't started migration away from it yet, though.
Businesses who validate phone numbers often use an API (like Twilio Lookup or one of the many, many other services) to check for VoIP numbers and automatically reject them most of the time. Unfortunately, lots of VoIP is used in fraud, so the will often just reject them out of hand. If this is happening, none of the other "virtual" number services will work and you'll want to get a cheap eSIM.
This year I finally decided to start using my non-google voice number to take advantage of the much better SMS/MMS/RCS options. Google Voice has just obviously stagnated over the years with almost zero new features. The new automatic spam call answering screener I believe is also not supported on Google Voice which is very ironic, you would think Google Voice would be the perfect place to implement this!
Just another case of extend and extinguish by Google -- they acquired Grand Central many years ago to create Google Voice but then never really took it anywhere.
If someone finds an better SMS/MMS to email gateway, please let me know. Google Voice's support for group messages is awful.
I used to use it. Use jmp.chat now. It is not perfect, but it is reliable enough for my needs.
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