I’ve become very smitten with Skype lately. I’ve had an account for years, but never really used it… until now. It just makes so much sense in so many scenarios. For $30 a year I have unlimited calling throughout the US and Canada. For an additional $30 bucks a year I have a Skype-assigned phone number. With that number I’m able to entirely hide the fact I’m using Skype to the outside world.
Google Voice is another service I’m quite fond of. It basically acts as a dispatching service for all your phone numbers. With a single Google Voice assigned phone number, you can have all calls routed in whatever fashion you choose. I want to make Google Voice my primary number that I hand out to all my friends and family, and configure it to route in this order:
- Skype (I spend a lot of time in front of my PC all day)
- Home (I’ll soon be investing in a Skype WIFI phone for the home and disconnect this line)
- Work
- Cell
Furthermore, I want to use Skype as my primary calling service. I want to sunset Home and Work for outbound calls (i.e. receive calls on those lines, never make calls), and train my contacts to forget they exist. One big snag in this master plan is changing Skype’s Caller ID to use my Google Voice number. In other words, when I make a call with Skype, I want the recipient to see my Google Voice number in the caller ID. Skype fully supports this, but apparently Google Voice does not. Technically, they only don’t support Skype’s caller ID verification process. Skype uses SMS as their identity verification mechanism. You provide the number you would like them to use for caller ID, and they text you a verification code that you’re required to confirm:
Apparently Google Voice does not support SMS message through a web gateway (like Skype), and you’ll never receive Skype’s SMS message and therefore are prevented from changing the caller ID.
Here’s a forum thread detailing the issue
If you’re reading this, go to the Google Voice feature suggestions page and tell them you want this to be fixed!