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Google Voice: a step-by-step primer on ditching your land line while keeping your number

By | June 23, 2011, 5:04am PDT

Summary: Google doesn’t normally allow you to port a land line phone number to Google Voice. This step-by-step primer shows you how you can do it.

This article is the first of our Google Voice series. In this article, we’ll look at how you can port land lines to Google Voice.

Read the full Google Voice series:

On Tuesday, I wrote about My frustrating day with Google Voice. As the article stated, I blamed AT&T’s terrible coverage in my area.

While there was much gnashing of teeth in the comments about AT&T, my suitability as a phone owner and/or member of the human race, and right-wingers, welfare, and socialism (hey, they’re the boards, what did you expect?), there were also some questions about how we moved our land lines to Google Voice.

That’s what this article is about.

Here’s the basic story. My wife and I have moved from one home to another. The original home was served by land lines. Our phone numbers, both the personal one and the one for our home office, were attached to those wired phone lines.

When we moved, we wanted to “rescue” those phone numbers and have them follow us to the new digs so our friends and business associates could continue to call us at numbers they were used to dialing.

There are a number of other elements we wanted in our home/home office phone system, and I’ll be detailing how we got those working in future articles.

The challenge is that Google does not allow you to “port” a land line to Google Voice. Porting is the process where you’re able to move your wireless service from one cellular phone carrier to another. This service was put into place as a result of the FCC’s WLNP (Wireless Local Number Portability) program, which kicked off on November 24, 2003.

Since that time, number portability has (with a few bumps in the road) been extended to land line numbers as well. That means that you can move your hardwired land line phone number from one provider to another.

In our case, we had our POTS (plain ol’ telephone system) phones through AT&T. While I’m sure you can port land lines from other phone companies, we stayed with AT&T through the entire porting process, using cheap AT&T throwaway phones to make this all happen. We also both have AT&T iPhones (my wife loves hers and I, well, I have one).

Overview

Let’s start with an overview of the process. Since Google won’t accept anything other than a cellular phone, you’re going to need to first port your land line number to a cell phone, and then, port it from your cell phone to Google Voice. All told, using the mechanism I’m going to describe below, it’ll cost you about $45 per phone line ported.

Next: Steps 1 and 2 »

More from “ZDNet Government”

Topics

Google Inc., Phone, Google Voice, AT&T Corp., Cell Phone, Phone Number, Telecom & Utilities, David Gewirtz

David Gewirtz, Distinguished Lecturer at CBS Interactive, is an author, U.S. policy advisor, and computer scientist. He is featured in The History Channel special The President's Book of Secrets.

Disclosure

David Gewirtz

At various times during his adult life, David has voted for both Democrats and Republicans, and has been disappointed by both. He is deeply disturbed by how partisanship has come before patriotism in America, which gives him the freedom to pick on both sides.

David is a frequent guest on TV and radio stations across America and can usually be heard or seen on-the-air at least once a week. He writes weekly commentary and analysis for CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 and has been interviewed by Fox News, CNN, various ABC and NBC affiliates, and Canada’s Global TV. He has been a featured guest on National Public Radio and has also been featured on Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Liberty where his commentaries on technology, industry, and emerging nations have been broadcast into 46 countries (all in their own unique translations).

David is the executive director of U.S. Strategic Perspective Institute, a nonprofit research and policy organization. He is the Cyberterrorism Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism & Security Professionals, a columnist for The Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security and a special contributor to Frontline Security Magazine. He is a member of the FBI’s InfraGard program, the security partnership between the FBI and industry. David is also a member of the U.S. Naval Institute and the National Defense Industrial Association, the leading defense industry association promoting national security.

David is an advisory board member for the Technical Communications and Management Certificate program at the University of California, Berkeley extension. He is also a member of the instructional faculty at the University of California, Berkeley extension.

David’s “day job” is as publisher and editor-in-chief of ZATZ publishing, an online publisher of technical magazines. Other than than his ownership stake in Component Enterprises, Inc. (the parent company of ZATZ), David has no additional industry investments.

ZATZ has many advertisers who do, in part, provide for David’s lush income and extravagant lifestyle. Most of them are IBM and Lotus aftermarket suppliers, some of them make goodies for Microsoft Outlook, and a few make all sorts of strange mobile devices and add-on products. David has been a regular judge of the IBM Awards, but has no formal financial interest in or with IBM.

Because the ZATZ online magazines often review products, David and ZATZ are sent an overwhelming stream of unsolicited, silly, and often useless products to review. Because they’re such a pain to track and ship back, these products often wind up in a dumpster or fill up the corner of a large closet. Although David has no plans to review products in connection to his ZDNet blog, if he does do a product review, he will disclose any relationship completely in that posting.

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David has many other business relationships, but none of them relate to anything he covers in his ZDNet blog. David does have a bit of the sales-guy bug and if he’s not doing a sales deal with someone at least once a month, he goes through withdrawal. He has a number of consulting clients, but none of them relate to anything he covers for ZDNet (and if they ever do, he will either disclose that fact, or decline to write about them).

Back in the 1980s, David held the unusual title of “Godfather” at Apple. He has written and published 40 incredibly simplistic applications for Apple’s iPhone.

Although David is forbidden to disclose the terms of his iPhone developer agreement, he isn’t drinking the Apple Kool Aid, will never be confused with a metrosexual, and feels free to mock Apple, and Apple users, any time the occasion permits, on alternate Tuesdays, or if he’s bored.

Biography

David Gewirtz

In addition to hosting the ZDNet Government and ZDNet DIY-IT blogs, CBS Interactive's Distinguished Lecturer David Gewirtz is an author, U.S. policy advisor, and computer scientist. He is featured in The History Channel special The President's Book of Secrets, is one of America's foremost cyber-security experts, and is a top expert on saving and creating jobs. He is also director of the U.S. Strategic Perspective Institute as well as the founder of ZATZ Publishing.

David is a member of FBI InfraGard, the Cyberwarfare Advisor for the International Association for Counterterrorism & Security Professionals, a columnist for The Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, and has been a regular CNN contributor, and a guest commentator for the Nieman Watchdog of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. He is the author of Where Have All the Emails Gone?, the definitive study of email in the White House, as well as How To Save Jobs and The Flexible Enterprise, the classic book that served as a foundation for today's agile business movement.

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