Switched to CREDO Mobile

I recently switched from using AT&T for my wireless carrier to a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), CREDO Mobile. They’re a pretty cool company that’s been around for a while and uses their profits to fund progressive organizations and activism. If you don’t necessarily care about that, they’re worth checking out for their rates alone.

Use Google Voice for Voicemail

Along with changing my wireless carrier, I decided to drop the iPhone and switch to an Android (HTC One). So far, I’m loving Android and digging into all the features pointed me to the possibility of replacing my provider’s voicemail with Google Voice. Unfortunately, the quick and easy configuration available on their site wouldn’t work for me because I’m not using one of the major carriers. It’s somewhat odd considering CREDO uses Sprint’s network and Google Voice has special integration options with them.

After doing some digging, I found out that all I’d have to do to use Google Voice for my voicemail with CREDO is enable conditional call forwarding on my account. Unable to find anything relevant on their site, I placed a call to their customer service line. The representative knew exactly what I was talking about and had the feature available within minutes.

Conditional Call Forwarding

With conditional call forwarding to my Google Voice number now available on my phone, all I had to do was activate it by dialing *28. Other posts I found, and the Google Voice documentation, actually say to use *28XXXXXXXXXX where the X’s representing your Google Voice number. In my case, I found that to be unnecessary as my carrier set that piece up for me. *28 is sufficient to activate forwarding and *38 deactivates it.

Google Voice’s voicemail now works on my CREDO Mobile phone, replacing the stock voicemail it came with and giving me all the features the stock app would have charged $1.99.month for — forwarding voicemails to email and automated transcription.

The one beef I have is that with the forwarding is that it takes an awfully long to connect the caller to my voicemail. It rings for 25-30 seconds on my phone at which point it seems to forward to Google Voice where it rings for another 25-30 seconds before rolling over to voicemail. It appears this extra wait time can be avoiding by enabling Do Not Disturb on your Google Voice number, automatically routing calls to voicemail.