What happens to prepaid phone if I port to Google Voice?

I have a prepaid T-Mobile phone with a phone number I ported to it to
save. If I port that number to Google Voice, what happens to the
phone? Does it shut off? Can I get another phone number assigned to it
to use the prepaid balance?

On 6/20/2012 8:42 AM, Yeechang Lee wrote:
> I have a prepaid T-Mobile phone with a phone number I ported to it to
> save. If I port that number to Google Voice, what happens to the
> phone? Does it shut off?

Emergency calls only.

> Can I get another phone number assigned to it
> to use the prepaid balance?

No. Presumably you did not put a lot of money on the T-Mobile phone, so
it's not a huge deal to lose it.

Google Voice's policies can be exasperating. Why is it necessary to
first port a landline to a wireless carrier, then port the wireless
number to Google Voice, in order to move a landline to Google Voice?

Why can't you forward a Google Voice number to an international phone
number, instead being forced to use a workaround with localphone.com?
There must be good reasons for both of these, but I can't think of what
they are.

In the last episode of <jseiab$roe$1@dont-email.me>, sms88
<scharf.steven@geemail.com> said:

>Google Voice's policies can be exasperating. Why is it necessary to
>first port a landline to a wireless carrier, then port the wireless
>number to Google Voice, in order to move a landline to Google Voice?

I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect that they're not set up to
reclassify phone numbers to activate SMS functionality.

Either that or their porting agreements simply only allow wireless
numbers to be ported. Porting is insanely complicated.

>Why can't you forward a Google Voice number to an international phone
>number, instead being forced to use a workaround with localphone.com?
>There must be good reasons for both of these, but I can't think of what
>they are.

This one is a bit more complicated, but I think it's more a case of them
not wanting to make it easy for non-'mericans to use Google Voice until
they're prepared to roll-out internationally.

--
I read usenet for the articles

On 7/2/2012 12:39 PM, DevilsPGD wrote:

>> Why can't you forward a Google Voice number to an international phone
>> number, instead being forced to use a workaround with localphone.com?
>> There must be good reasons for both of these, but I can't think of what
>> they are.
>
> This one is a bit more complicated, but I think it's more a case of them
> not wanting to make it easy for non-'mericans to use Google Voice until
> they're prepared to roll-out internationally.

The ironic thing is that international calls are something that Google
gets revenue from, they are not free. It's pretty easy to restrict
access to Google Voice geographically. There may be ways around it, i.e.
using a VPN service that terminates in the U.S., but most people would
not do this.