As the endless brouhaha ringing from all corners of the Internet has proven, AT&T (or Apple, or whoever takes the blame in the end) really dropped the ball on this Google Voice thing. Whether it was rejected outright or shelved indefinitely, competing parties have been quick to play on their delays.
First, Palm essentially put third-party Google Voice dialer gDialPro on its shoulders and carried it across the finish line by ensuring that it was one of the first (and still one of just a few) applications to land on the webOS App Catalog. Now, Sprint has come along and done something rare: they’ve dropped long-established fees. With Google Voice’s new keep-your-number feature in mind, Sprint will be doing away with the call forwarding fees associated with third-party voicemail services come mid-November.
As it currently stands, call forwarding on Sprint currently costs $0.20 per minute. For example: if a user has their line set to forward to their Google Voice mailbox after a certain number of rings and the caller leaves a 5 minute message, that call would cost the user a buck. No longer, says Sprint; for any type of call forwarding required for the use of a third-party service (such as while the line is busy, or when calls go unanswered), the minutes will go uncounted.
In Sprint’s own words:
. Conditional call forwarding for busy calls or calls not answered using the customer’s wireless phone will be free, beginning mid-November. (Standard charges will continue to apply for immediate call forwarding.)3 This change will give Sprint customers the opportunity to access third-party voice services, including the new voicemail feature in Google VoiceTM.
Clarification: As pointed out by James B in the comments below, Sprint is the last of the major carriers to hop on board with free conditional call forwarding.
[Thanks for the heads-up, Mike!]
Uh… Sprint is the only carrier that charges for this feature. Its free on ALL other carriers.
In effect, Sprint has finally followed all other carriers.
Other carriers seem to be covered in this FAQ: http://jott.com/jott/help.html#a119
shhh you’re making sprint look bad!
Sprint definitely doesn’t need any help doing that. Though I’ll admit the unlimited calling to call wireless phones is a nice touch.
Now if only they’d stop forcing their long term loyal customers in to upgrading their lines to use the top of the line phones they might stop bleeding them away.
The other major carriers still charge per minute rates when forwarding to other voicemail services and what I have been told by Sprint is that it will not incur per minute charges.
James B – October 27th, 2009 at 7:38 pm CDT Uh… Sprint is the only carrier that charges for this feature. Its free on ALL other carriers.
In effect, Sprint has finally followed all other carriers.
reply
this is not true. T-Mobile allots 500 call forwarding minutes a month. across the board for all customers. if you go over these minutes; you pay a la carte. and it’s a crazy price. The unfortunate thing about Sprint was they don’t allow users to set ‘CONDITIONAL’ call forwarding on the device. They have to call into CS which is a hassle in itself. And their CS dept wouldn’t disclose the per min fee. Sprint has finally come to their senses
Actually now you can set conditional call fowarding yourself with *28 numbertofowardto. Check out google voice if you have a account they give you the dirrections.
This is smart, since it saves Sprint the resources of having to run their own voicemail servers. Too bad there isn’t a way to forward text messages as well.
Also, it’s worth noting that call forwarding on Sprint as it exists now costs $.20/minute, *not* minutes out of your existing plan.
Ack – the two comments above me are correct. I even double checked before I wrote that. Revising.
We don’t blame you for being an idiot, Greg; we blame Arrington for making you say stupid things about GV, which after all remains a buggy, private beta used by at most a couple of hundred thousand users, probably much, much less.
Need a juice box?
Tim,
do you want a GV invite?
…or many, many fewer. Unless, as I say to my ESL wife, GV users are rice.
Personally, I like GV very much. It, along with Ooma’s call blacklisting, has rescued me from telephone hell.
Now all T-Mobile needs to do is give flexpay and TM2GO users call forwarding capability !
This might actually take some load off of their network as well.
Now if they could only send a monthly statement you could understand people might begin to trust them again.
Actually Sprint’s bills are one of the better ones
I switched from ATT to sprint. Not only do I pay way less for the same & more I have not had one problem with them.
The bad rep sprint receives is from people holding grudges from years ago.
Not only do they have the best prices on numerous test they have come on top in terms of data reliability and speed.
Sprint haters need to drop that 8 year old grudge and move along. Those same people still holding sprint accountable for their past mistakes I bet are still clinging on windows xp. TIME TO MOVE ON AND I MEAN IN EVERY ASPECT OF IT.
I am currently a Sprint customer and i do not hold any grudges against them and i will continue to be their customer (SERO plan), but i dread every time i need to call Sprint.
Their reps are not rude, but they are very inconsistently trained.
When i originally signed up, once i got my phone, to activate my line i had to call literally 5 times because reps kept telling me that i wasn’t in their system or phone would activate on its own.
You have to call Sprint multiple times until you get the right answer or rep that knows wtf needs to be done.
“Move on” from Win XP? Why? It does everything I need it to. It’s Microsoft’s problem if they need new products just to maintain their revenue stream.
SO I shouldn`t switch till mid nov for the google voice mail part,without being charged? or did sprint drop the charges as of oct 27? 20 cent a min charge?
The changes dont go into place until mid-nov
Actually, Sprint is different in this regard. Other carriers DO NOT offer conditional call fowarding for free, they offer it and it USES your minutes. Sprints offering will not use your anytime minutes. It’s a great update if you ask me.
Yeah, it sounds to me like Sprint is going from worst to first. The blogger should clarify.
is this really free as in no airtime charge? or are they just dropping the $0.20 additional charge?
this would be great for simply forwarding all calls to a landline to avoid airtime charges when at home, work, etc. but sounds a little two good to be true.
i also wonder if this will also spill through to the MVNO brands like virgin and boost were users typically pay for each minute instead of a monthly bundle.
‘Call forwarding” – Sprint charges for this?
I’ve been on ATT Wireless since before it was Cingular. Never had a fee for call forwarding. Always an included feature.
SPRINT CALL FORWARDING
I just and email to Sprint Customer Service to drop the fees they have been charging for years while they same call forwarding features comes free on other cell phone carriers. I have been Sprint customer for so long now and love the service except this call forwarding which I hate. I think it is time for Sprint grow up and act like an adult and stop charging the call forwarding fees. This should come standard in this 21st century when no other call phone providers charging for it anymore.
I am glad sprint is waking up to this. Sprint’s vmail is lacking to say the least and even if u don’t use gv there are far better alternatives and a customer should be able to use one of their choosing.
- ok who has a gv invite they not gonna use lol.
Consider yourselves lucky. Rogers and Fido in Canada used to have conditional call forwarding but have gotten rid of it!
Canada has too much government control as far as communication is concerned. Privatize communication sector Canadian government. It’s time.
why does everyone keep asking for GV invites? It took like a week to get mine. Now I’m trying to get one for my mother, that is taking longer.
I have saved one invite for my brother but you can have it. Once you get an invite for your mom, just forward that link to me. What is your email so that I can forward the invite to you.
Thanks, but it’s not an urgency because next I’d have to teach my mother how to use it so I’ll have to teach her that whole internet thing, the main reason I’m getting it for her is cheap international calling. But thank you for offering.
Well as far as gv invite goes I’ve been on the list awhile not sure exactly but seems like ages lol. Anyway I don’t need the 3 they give ya once I get in just getting the invite in is the hard part.
ATT sucks. plain and simple. Not sure why iPhone losers want to invest in a brick.
Turtle, not brick.
I bought out of my AT&T iPhone contract after 14 (too many…) months, unlocked my phone, and now use it with barely-more-reliable (but much cheaper!) T-Mobile voice prepaid. Thinking about getting Verizon MiFi to restore the data. Sprint is tempting because, unlike Verizon, they don’t disable the MiFi’s GPS, but from what I hear Sprint has far worse coverage than does Verizon (anyone have knowledgable comments on that?)
Do not be fooled by Sprint. I hate to say that even if you use *28 feature and call get forwarded to google voice and you answer the phone, sprint will charge you 20 cents per minute even after the feature is free. You will not be charged if it goes to Google Voice mail. Sprint should grow up now and starting providing no fee to call forwarding as other service providers are not charging for call forwarding. Sprint is all making us fool saying the feature will be free but in actuality it is not.
Niz, you’ve posted this exact comment on a bunch of other comment sections on other web sites- could you tell us we’re you’re getting this info? I highly doubt Sprint would try to charge for something they are calling free- that’s an easy lawsuit waiting to happen.
Niz,
You appeared to have tried the service even before the feature went for free.
Try again today.The service just went free effective today (11.08.09).
http://insidesprintnow.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/google-voice-sprint-110809/
and it was confirmed via echat with me today.