I was thrilled to get a special invite to get a google voice number. I was really looking forward to this because with google voice, you are able to keep the same number even when you switch phone carriers. Also, I don’t have to give out my real cell number to marketers and spammers.

After 3 months of experimenting with Google Voice, I’m seriously not impressed at all. In fact, instead of making my life easier, it made my life more complicated. Here’s why:

1) Once you setup Google voice, all voicemails will be routed to voicemail box provided by GV. ATT voicemail box is basically dead and with it, the visual voicemail on my iphone also stopped working!!!

2) So how do I know who called me and left me a voicemail? In GV, you can get your voicemail transcribed and sent to you via sms. This is an example of how a voicemail was transcribed. It was from a client of mine reporting an issue on their website, but of course you can never tell from reading the text message below. The word “hospital” was enough to make me panic! A few times when I clicked on the transcribed sms to listen to the actual voicemails, there’s actually nothing found in my GV voicemail!

3) I’m able to see past the terrible transcribing quality, but retrieving voicemails have become a chore. I have to depend on ATT’s spotty 3G to connect to GV and pray that google.com/voice website is not down. Too many variables I have to depend on just to retrieve my voicemails!!!

Google Voice, it’s time to break up with you!