When I first moved to China, I decided that I still wanted to stay connected to the US. Part of that is keeping a US phone number that can both send and receive calls and text messages. Luckily, thanks to products like Google Voice and Skype, doing so is now cheap and easy.
If you’ve used Google Voice, you are already used to the idea of having a forwarding phone number – every time someone calls your Google Voice number, the call is forwarded to your regular phone. My phone is in China, though, so it doesn’t work quite so easily; Google Voice does not support adding overseas phone numbers to an account yet.
When I first set up my Google Voice account, I was living in the US and used my US cell phone. However, I cancelled my contract with AT&T, so I didn’t even have that anymore. If you’re in a similar situation and would like to continue to have a US-based phone while you’re abroad, feel free to follow along with my setup below.
My first step was to turn off SMS forwarding and enable ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode so that while I had no physical phone, my calls and text messages would not be forwarded to some stranger who ended up with my old number.
To do that, you need to do two things in Google Voice. First, make sure your messages are sent to your email. Go to Settings->Voicemail & SMS. Within that tab, turn on Voicemail Notifications and SMS Forwarding. Don’t forget to save your changes.
Forwarding Google Voice to Email
Next, turn on Do Not Disturb mode to prevent calls from being forwarded to your old phone number. This is under Settings->Calls.
Do Not Disturb
Now, you can send and receive text messages, and you can receive incoming calls. All the calls go to voicemail, but at least you can get messages.
To start making and receiving calls again for real, you need to set up a Skype account with the ability to receive calls. A basic skype account is free, but to receive calls in the US, it will cost you $18 for 3 months.
Once you have a basic Skype account set up, to add support for incoming calls, go to Account->View Account from the menu bar.
Skype - View Account
Now that you have your Skype account page open, you want to buy an ‘Online Number’. Go to that tab and set up a number in the US.
Skype - Online Number
Once you have your new Skype number, go back to Google Voice and add it as a telephone – Settings->Phones->Add a new phone. I call mine ‘Skype’. You don’t want to receive SMS messages on this phone, because you’re already receiving them in your email, so choose ‘Home’ as your phone type. Make sure you’re signed into Skype right now.
Adding Skype Number to Google Voice
You’ll receive a call on Skype asking you to input a two digit number. You’ll have to open the digital keypad to input the number.
Skype - Keypad Button
At this point, you should delete your old number in Google Voice and turn off ‘Do Not Disturb’, so that Google Voice begins forwarding your calls again. If someone calls your Google Voice number, you will receive the call on Skype, as long as you are signed in.
What if you are not signed in, though? Supposing you have a phone number in your current country, you can set up Skype to forward the call to your phone number. To do this, you need to add some Skype credit and set up a forwarding number in the View Account page.
Skype - Adding Credit and a Forwarding Number
Now, if you are not signed into Skype, and someone calls your Google Voice number, the call will be forwarded to Skype, which will then forward it to your new phone number at regular Skype rates (for me, US->China is 2.1 cents/minute).
This is pretty good, but there’s one last optimization I made. If you are worried about people calling who don’t know you’re out of the country and waking you up in the middle of the night, you can set up Google Voice to only ring your phone during the daytime in your timezone; otherwise, calls go straight to voicemail. This has already saved me twice when my bank called to ask me some survey questions.
First, make sure your Google account is set up for the right time zone. Go to Settings->Account and select your time zone from the drop down menu.
Setting the Google Account Timezone
Then, to set up a custom ring schedule for your phone, go to Settings->Phones->Skype and click the ‘Edit’ button.
Google Voice - Editing the Skype Phone
Finally, click ‘Show Advanced Settings’ and go down to the Ring Schedule settings. Here, you can get as fancy as you want. I have mine set up to not ring from midnight until 6am on weekdays and from 1am to 7am on weekends.
Google Voice - Custom Ring Schedules
That’s it! You now have a US phone number that you can use anywhere in the world for about 2-3 cents per minute for voice and includes free, unlimited text messages. To make a call, just use Google Voice as usual by calling your contact and selecting ‘Skype’ as the phone to ring. If you’re on you’re computer and are signed into Skype, you will get the call on Skype and won’t have to pay for it at all. If you’re not near your computer, your cell phone will ring and you’ll pay Skype’s international rate. Incoming calls work the same way.
Hope this helps someone!
March 26, 2010 at 12:34 am
Thanks for posting this – it was so helpful! And so great for friends and family to be able to call me for free after I move overseas next week!
Thanks so much.
Jessica
March 26, 2010 at 9:48 am
I’m glad to hear it helped, Jessica! Hope you have a good experience overseas!
April 2, 2010 at 8:17 am
Thanks for this! I’m moving to New Zealand soon and have been looking for a cheap way to maintain a US number. This is it, and it’s cheaper than Vonage!
April 11, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Thanks! Very useful, thanks! Especially the tip on DND is great, I hate being called at 4 AM when I’m abroad
April 21, 2010 at 5:42 am
omg how cool!!! because Ive been wondering how to keep my GV. I hope google lets us add international numbers soon
you can also check out this thing called magic jack. i know it can be bought overseas and in cvs here. but it works with the internet, and it gives u an american number.
May 3, 2010 at 5:59 am
This was very clear except for the outgoing call part. If I’m logged into Skype, then it is straight forward. But if I am on my cell phone with the Japanese SIM in it, how should I make a call back to the US?
2nd question ( related ), What country should the Skype number be in? The foreign country that I am in or should it be somewhere in the US?
My guess is the Skype number is in the country I am in , which gives me a local SkyeOut number to call (like when you check Skype voice mail ) and then you tell it to call a US number which then completes the call of over Skype’s network.
But that is just a guess.
May 5, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Hi Ray,
Sorry if this was confusing. You should actually get the Skype-In number in the US. Google Voice works by first calling your phone number, then by connecting you with the number you want to call. Your Skype number is the first number that Google Voice will call and therefore needs to be in the US.
When I’m not near my computer, I still have data access on my cell phone, so I go to the Google Voice mobile webpage and tell it to call someone and connect to my Skype number. Skype will then forward to my actual cell phone because I’m not signed in to Skype. Unfortunately, this won’t work if you don’t have a data plan for your cell phone. To be honest, I don’t know what the best solution would be for you in that case, since I haven’t had to set that up for myself.
Hope this helps!
June 10, 2010 at 4:45 am
Nice summary. Two questions:
1. I don’t get the last paragraph, specifically “selecting ‘Skype’ as the phone to ring”? Why not just call from GV over 3G/WiFi? Why add the Skype layer on out going calls?
2. When someone calls your GV number, and it’s routed to Skype and then Skype routes to your in-country number, don’t you get charged by GV and Skype? GV at their US-US rate and Skype at their US-InCountry rate? And then wouldn’t you get hit again by your SIM provider at whatever US-InCountry rate?
Thanks!
Lee
June 17, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Hey Lee,
1. There are actually two situations in which you make an outgoing call with Google Voice.
If you’re sitting at your computer, GV works by calling a phone you select then connecting you with the phone you’re trying to call. It doesn’t actually call through your computer. Since I’m overseas, I can have it call my Skype online number and I make the call through skype using my computer’s microphone.
If you’re on your cell phone and have wifi or 3G, the way Google Voice works is by finding a local access number for your phone to call and using the ‘phone’ functionality on your phone to make a local call, which then gets connected to someone else by Google’s computer. Unfortunately, there are no local access numbers for me in China, so I don’t want to make the call that way because that first call would be charged at international rates (China to US). If I have GV use my Skype phone, however, it calls my US Skype number, and then Skype charges me 2 cents per minute to connect to my cell phone in China.
2. GV is free for US to US calls, so there’s no charge there. If you have a Skype online number, you don’t get charged per-minute – it’s a constant $18 every three months for unlimited incoming calls.
You only get charged per minute if you don’t answer the call on Skype using your computer. Then, you pay the rate that Skype charges to call from the US to wherever your cell phone is (for me, that’s China).
Lee, let me know if that helps. If you have any more questions, let me know. I’ll try to answer more quickly than I did this time…
June 18, 2010 at 2:25 am
Mike,
Thanks for the reply. I’m still not clearing connecting the dots with the Skype / GV calling. Going to think about it some more and re-read your post.
But my understanding based on your comment is that I can not call the US through GV alone (no Skype) on my cell when I am connected through WiFi, without incurring fees? Thought that was possible…
June 18, 2010 at 6:19 am
Mike,
I think I am clear on having calls forwarded to the cell in-country. Our situation is a bit different because we will be keeping our US cell phone number. So I’m leaving our current US cell number in GV, turned on, but with the option to forward calls to the US cell number to my other GV phones. Since my GV account will only include the mobile and Skype Online, any calls to my US cell number will be forwarded to Skype Online, which will be forwarded to my in-country number as specified in Skype forwarding. For this, I should only be charged a Skype US-country rate. I thought it would also charge a Skype US-US for the GV to Skype Online forward, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. One question – Will this use up minutes / $$$ on my in-country SIM card when I receive the call on my cell?
I am still confused about placing calls using the cell phone over WiFi. Keep in mind I’m using a Nexus One, so my questions may have more to do with the GV App for the N1.
First question: You say to make a call, use GV to call your contact, select “Skype” as the phone to ring (“have it call my Skype Online number”). I don’t see where that option is available. For instance, I can set an option to let me choose, when placing the call, whether to call via GV or the phone under settings. I also have an option in the GV app to set “This Phone’s Number”, which lists the phones in my GV account. Is this the option you’re talking about? When setting that to the Skype Online number, my caller ID shows up as the GV number and the call isn’t shown in the Skype history.
Second question: When I make outgoing calls this way, it won’t use up minutes on the SIM card when Skype connects with my cell?
Lastly, just to confirm – outgoing calls via GV / Skype on the cell are not possible without 3G / WiFi, obviously, right? So then I would choose not to use GV when prompted by the phone after dialing the number, otherwise the call would simply fail. In the scenario where I want to call a local in-country number with my SIM, I would again choose not to use GV when prompted.
Ok, one more thing. I would think it’d be cheaper calling the US at the SIM rate than using GV+Skype over 3G, and getting hit with the data rate?
Thanks!
Lee
June 18, 2010 at 10:19 am
Hi Lee,
I think I see where you’re coming from a little better now. I have an iPhone, so it’s possible the GV app works differently on the Nexus One.
On the iPhone, I’ve been going to the mobile version of the GV website. They recently upgraded it and took away the ability to specify which phone I want to ring on outgoing calls. Luckily, there’s an option to see the older version, which is more like the regular website and lets me specify a phone. I’m not sure what the equivalent would be on the Nexus One.
As far as charging your SIM card, I think that depends on your carrier. After you initiate the call with GV, the call that eventually causes your phone to ring is an incoming call. On my plan, incoming calls are free, but I’m sure it varies.
Therefore, if incoming calls are free on your plan, I think the cheapest way to make outgoing calls with GV for you would be to turn off the Skype app on your phone (so the incoming skype call goes over your SIM, not your data plan), then use the GV app to initiate a call with your Skype phone.
I have a feeling that if I had a Nexus One, I’d be able to help more, since I’d know exactly what you’re seeing. I’m actually pretty sure that my next phone will be an Android; the iPhone OS is pretty limiting. Last time I changed phones, though, the only one out was the G1, which wasn’t too exciting.
June 18, 2010 at 11:32 am
Thanks again. Well Skype has not yet provided an App for Android phones other than for Verizon. Very disappointing of them to say the least…
I bet that setting I found is what you’re using, though it’s a pain because I would have to switch it over every time I changed from calling abroad to calling locally. Not a deal breaker, but I could easily see forgetting.
My wife is headed to Oxford this weekend, so it’ll give us a chance to try things out. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Thanks =)
Lee
June 18, 2010 at 11:50 am
Glad I could help. Good luck this weekend!
June 22, 2010 at 12:27 am
Mike,
Seems to be working though I’ve noticed a few things that I am going to write up on my blog at some point.
One thing I’ve realized is that we get hit with the US-Mobile rate, which in the UK is 20 cents per minute, versus the US-Landline rate of 2 cents per minute. I guess 20 cents is still better than the alternatives…
July 8, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Hi Mike, thanks for the great tutorial, it’s working perfectly for me!
My only issue is that the caller id for all incoming calls are Chinese Skype numbers and not my friends’ US names/numbers – do you have this issue as well? If not, I’d really appreciate any pointers on how to overcome this problem, thanks in advance!
July 14, 2010 at 3:23 am
Hi Han,
I have this problem as well. I don’t know if there’s a way to get around it, though. I know Google Voice keeps the incoming number when it forwards to Skype, but I don’t think Skype can keep the incoming number when it forwards to China on the last step. If it did that, it would probably end up costing Skype the same as a long-distance call. I’m just guessing, though, so if you can figure out a way to get their number show up, please let me know!
-Mike