# VOIP Calling and Text



## good4life (Oct 4, 2014)

I am considering reducing my monthly costs by changing my current mobile phone service. 

I am currently paying about $82/month for unlimited talk, text and 2GB+ of data with mobile hotspot. This is not tethering, rather, a separate hotspot device. I can get my cost down to less than $20/month for unlimited talk, text and 5GB+ of data via hotspot if I used VOIP services for voice and text. 

Does anybody have any experience with using any of the WiFi/3G/4G only services like NextPlus (formerly TextPlus), WhatsApp, Google Voice w/Hangouts, Skype, etc. for voice and text over a hotspot set up? If so, how does/did it work for you? Is this a viable approach for use with Uber/Lyft or am I wishing? Any service better than others?

Backdrop: I use a max of 500 minutes of talk, 500 text messages and 2GB of data per month (Uber/Lyft). I like having a separate hotspot because I can stream for no bandwidth cost through T-Mobile. I'm using Android but these services are also available on iOS.

Thoughts are appreciated.


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

I've used Google Voice for years - I love it, and it's free.
I've got it set up so that any calls to my GV number ring on any (all) of my other lines at the same time (home, office, mobile, work mobile). That, of course, is completely configurable. Same for txt msgs - a txt sent to the GV # shows up on any txt capable phone I have tied to the GV#. And all voicemails are transcribed to text and can be read through the GV app (or a browser).

And Google Voice is FREE in the US.

I used my GV# to register as a driver with Uber - which is also working very well. Because of that, I can use any of my mobile devices to run the driver app and receive pings - and calls - and txts (of course I can only login with one device at a time).

For the mobile phone I use as my main 'Uber' phone I have bought a Brightspot sim card (T-Mobile service) and data plan, available from Target. The plan I chose is $35/mo with unlimited data (2GB 4G then throttled to 3G), unlimited txt msg and a couple of hundred minutes of voice. Since I use Google Voice for all of my calls, the small # of voice minutes is irrelevant to me.

While driving ride-share, I also run a hot-spot from my Uber phone so that my personal phone and tablet have WiFi (and it's available to riders, too - but no one has ever used it).


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## Michael - Cleveland (Jan 1, 2015)

Oh - One of the other GREAT things about using Google Voice as your Uber #, is that since all calls from riders have a caller ID of your Uber #, you can set it up so those calls have their own voice-mail message (or forwarding - or whatever you want). My voice-mail message for calls from Uber riders is something like: "This is your driver, I can't take your call right now because I am driving to you - but feel free to send me a txt message with details of your pick-up location - which I'll see right away."


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## good4life (Oct 4, 2014)

Hey Michael, thanks for your reply. I too have been using GV since the Grand Central days so I am very familiar with GV. What I am trying to get to is if anyone is using VOIP service only while driving. I am trying to run all of my apps (voice, text and uber maps) thru a mobile hotspot. I am trying not to spend the $30 (Walmart T-Mo plan) or $35 (Brightspot) for 100 minutes, unlimited text and 5GB of data if I can spend $18/month and have unlimited talk, text and 5GB of data.


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