The Facts about SMS with Google Voice App

[searayman]

Anyone who has the Google voice app and uses it for texting may wounder about the delay. Do you get text messages as quickly as if they were sent to your real cell number and not your Google voice app? IF you have explored the Google Voice application the minimum refresh interval is 5 minutes. So one would assume you could be waiting up to five minutes fofr a text to get to you sent by a friend but this is not tru as proved by some tests me and joegrind (from the forum).

Our first test was a base test and he sent a text from his cell phone to my normal cell number (not my Google Voice number) and I received the text with in seconds after him sending it.

Next I had him send a text message to my Google Voice number. But right before I ha him send it i went into my gv app and did a manual refresh to make sure it would start its 5 min refresh interval right then to get accurate results to see if GV actually "pushed" the sms to my app. the message was sent at 8:35pm and I did not receive it until 8:40pm proving that gv does not "push" sms messages to its app.

Next we decided to test out a theory some have that if in your Google Voice settings you have the setting checked off in which it will send text messages directly to your phone (not just to gv app but to your built in text messenger) that you would get texts instantly. Upon testing this it proved true at first. If you have the setting checked to send messages to your cell then they come up in GV app instantly to. We tested this a few more time and got the same results but then joe grind came up with this theory, "I think as the gvoice dialer recognises the 406 numbers...it gets faster"

So I then we decided to go back and test this, by going back into my settings and turning off the send text to cell phone option. Upon doing this, in the next two tests i still got the text messages just about instantly.

What our results seem to prove is that one you have received at least one text from a number Google must first assign a 406 number behind the scenes to it (even if you don't uses the 406 #) then after the incoming number is recognized it speeds up delivery of the sms to your gv app.

last note is that this was only tested with the android gv app on the Motorola Droid. We have not tested the blackberry GV app.

What do you all think?

[borge12]

So, to be able to get GV SMSs pushed instantly to your phone you need to enable forward GV to forward the SMSs to your phone. Then, the people who sent those the SMSs which were forwarded will have their new SMSs show up instantly in GV?

[searayman]

So, to be able to get GV SMSs pushed instantly to your phone you need to enable forward GV to forward the SMSs to your phone. Then, the people who sent those the SMSs which were forwarded will have their new SMSs show up instantly in GV?

thats what we originally seemed to think but it seems after gv learns your contacts 406 number you don't need this setting on.

[borge12]

So, GV will instantly start getting SMSs?

[searayman]

So, GV will instantly start getting SMSs?

according to all the tests i did last night gv will get sms within 20-30 seconds after its been sent after Google has learned your friends 406 number, meaning the first text you ever receive from a friend will be slow but once there number is on file with Google then they will come in faster after that.

This is not stated by Google but more of what my experiment has proven to me.

[borge12]

Hmmm, I'm curious, how much does it take to learn someone's 406 number? I have been using GV to text quite a bit (80 texts in the last 24 hours), and it doesn't seem like any of the texts are being pushed to my phone.

[searayman]

Hmmm, I'm curious, how much does it take to learn someone's 406 number? I have been using GV to text quite a bit (80 texts in the last 24 hours), and it doesn't seem like any of the texts are being pushed to my phone.

for me it seems one message from a contact and google has it. I am not sur eif its "push" or not but mine seem to be comming in no longer then a min after they send it.

[s-one]

Thanks for doing those test as this is really good info. I had originally planned to go full out with GV and the 5 minute refresh time was a killer for me. Then breaking the camels back was the fact that GV does not do MMS.

[jweber]

GV does not push, mine pushed as well until I unchecked sms in 2 different locations in GV and then refreshed GV.( If you getting it instantly it's still sending them through your wireless provider.

However there is a workaround... Gmail does infact push and if you select send SMS to Gmail you get it asap. You see an email but when you reply they only see a text.

[borge12]

Ahh, thanks jweber!