If you head over to XMPP Voicemail there is a Google App Engine app written in Python that you can install in your own App Engine instance. The initial goal of the application was to send transcribed voicemail messages from Twilio to your Google Talk account using XMPP. But later functionality was added to allow for SMS messages to be sent to and from a representing Google Talk address.
As a Canadian who still can’t officially get access to Google Voice, this looked like a promising path. With some hackery, it is possible to get pretty well the same functionality but with a minor difference.
I’ve managed to figure out a hack to all of this. I am using the following:
- Two DID numbers (phone numbers) from voip.ms
- A Obihai Obi110 with Google Voice and voip.ms support
- A regular cordless phone
- Google Voice number
- Twilio number
So it’s a fairly complicated affair, one that could be simplified greatly if we Canadians had Google Voice, but alas, we don’t.
To get this working I did the following:
- Get the Obihai hardware.
- Install the Obihai and your phone.
- Get a US number representing each telephone you own from voip.ms
- Setup the Obihai to connect to your voip.ms account.
- Open a Google Voice account by using your US based voip.ms number. The verification system will call your Obihai based phone.
- Get a Twilio Canadian based number.
- Configure and install the xmppvoicemail app in Google Engine.
- Have your Twilio number forward to your Google Voice number when new calls come in.
- Have Google Voice notify your voip.ms numbers when called.
You then give our out your Canadian based Twilio number to friends and family. When they call this number, it will forward to your Google Voice number which will then notify all the numbers you have associated with your Google Voice number. In my case it rings my voip.ms account to which I have my Obihai connected and I also have my Android phone using the simplesid (app), connected to my voip.ms account. So my cell also rings. If you are logged into Google Talk, it will also ring. Note, all of this is done using VOIP. There’s no airtime minutes involved.
The tricky part comes with SMS and this is where xmppvoicemail is required. It creates a bridge between your SMS Twilio number to your Google Talk account.
In terms of functionality, when I get a SMS, the SMS number appears in my GTalk friends list. I am able to reply to this Gtalk “friend” which then forwards to my instance of the xmppvoicemail app which then forwards to Twilio which then forwards to the phone. The same works in reverse. Each SMS number is represented as a Gtalk “friend”.
I know, quite a hack to get something pretty basic but it allowed me to learn a lot about Twilio and the Google App Engine and even some Python.
If you want the gory details on how to install this, drop me a line. It would take a 10 part series to explain it all.
Or, just wait for Google to finally bring Google Voice to Canada. But I suspect implementing the above will take less time.