Will Google Hang Up on Voice?

Short answer: no.<p>Why Wired would publish an article with this title is pretty obvious, but for those of you who don't read through, there's absolutely nothing to see here. Resources continue to be invested in the project.<p>Everything Google has said on the matter indicates that they know that they would piss off too many people if the functionality was reduced or went away - and that the grievance would be real, from their perspective. It's far more likely at this point, based on everything we've seen (and that this article links to) that it will be integrated more heavily with + and hangouts and talk. Your phone number isn't going away.

They at least care enough about it to integrate it with Glass.<p><a href="https://support.google.com/glass/answer/3086044?hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://support.google.com/glass/answer/3086044?hl=en</a><p><i>If you're using Google Voice, the SMS will be sent from your Google Voice number. Otherwise, outbound SMS messages will be sent from the native SMS app on your phone.</i>

Is there any similar service where an existing GV number could be ported?<p>I was with sipphone client before it turned into gizmo5 and was swallowed. I remember the pains of reconfiguration (hardware ata + sip enabled dect phone + handheld + desktop + laptop ...), and pushing the new phone number to contacts, including the fact that to this day my sip-enabled dect phone at home still can't make outgoing call using GV.<p>I don't want the same scenario to repeat itself - I'll pay for the privilege of not having to wonder whether the service might close or not.

On this topic, what's a good Google voice alternative? Something for business that will ring my cell phone. Preferably a 1-800 # with answering ability and phone tree capability.

No.<p>Google Voice is a paid service (additional numbers, porting numbers, etc). They won't shut it down. They might deprecate the free-to-use features and make it paid only, perhaps. But it will not go away.

I've been using Google Voice for SMS for years now, and the threading issue is still a constant bother. For those who've never used it, Voice splits messages into different threads, but is completely opaque about how it does this, resulting in conversations with a person split up seemingly randomly.<p>I got a long text a few days ago from someone that had to be split into three. The first and third part was attached to the previous conversation, and the second part started a new one. No idea why it does this, but the fact that I've been searching online for an answer since 2010 and still don't have one is worrisome.

I really hope they don't. I use it daily and it's probably the service I rely on the most, besides GMail.

For anyone looking for an alternative to Google Voice checkout SendHub (<a href="https://www.sendhub.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.sendhub.com/</a>).

A note: if you're on VZW, their (sadly hideous) Messenger app replicates Voice's cross-device SMS(/MMS!) on your VZ number.

The difference between voice and reader is that while I might pay up to $5 per month for reader, I would be tempted by free alternatives.<p>Voice is world class and there are no competitors that come close for less than $10 per month.<p>(please don't tell Google this.)

Trollish post. Empty speculation and blatant pageview whoring.<p>No new features in the latest update but the .apk teardown suggests future functionality: <a href="http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/04/15/apk-teardown-google-voice-0-4-2-80-something-wants-to-read-google-voices-settings/" rel="nofollow">http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/04/15/apk-teardown-google-...</a>