Project Fi Invites Start Rolling Out

[dgstorm]

Folks who signed up to be notified when Project Fi becomes available may have just received positive news in their email inboxes today. Google sent out the first batch of invites. While this will be welcome news for many, there is one caveat that could be a deal-breaker for many. There are a number of limitations on the new service which only kick in if you are porting your current Google Voice number. Here's the skinny on the list of features that are not supported if you port your Google Voice number,

• Making and receiving calls using Google Talk, Google Voice apps, or Obihai devices
• You won’t be able to use Google Voice for texting or visual voicemail
• Text, voicemail and call history is no longer saved in Google Voice
• If you already turned on Google Voice text messages and voicemails in Hangouts, they will continue to be available only in Hangouts
• Certain Google Voice settings aren’t available: spam filtering, call recording, call switch, conference calling on the fly, caller ID (incoming), and outgoing caller ID (anonymous Caller ID).
• As part of signing up for Project Fi, Google Voice apps and the website won’t be available.

To be clear, many of these features are already built-in to the Project Fi service, so you aren't necessarily losing all of this. Still, it's a head scratcher why Google is having this issue. We will keep you posted with more details as they arrive.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

Interested to see what some of our users that have said they're going to try it out experience. From what I've seen in multiple threads, it sounds like most of them are planning to try it out alongside their current carriers, so many of these issues with porting numbers into the service shouldn't affect them...If I'm reading that post right.

 

[Dusty]

Yeah. I'm going to scale down my VZW plan but keep it as a backup due to poor Fi signal or whatever other problem arises. I'll do it until I have or lose faith in ProFi. In the meantime I'm going to set up an automatic voice mail directing people to call my ported GV number if they want me.

 

[LoneWolfArcher]

So if you haven't received one does that mean it isn't available in your area yet? I was pretty quick to sign up for more info, I WANT MY MORE INFO!!

 

[bsweetness]

So if you haven't received one does that mean it isn't available in your area yet? I was pretty quick to sign up for more info, I WANT MY MORE INFO!!

Not necessarily. I'm sure they're rolling out invites slowly. Not everyone who lives in an area where the service is available will automatically get an invite from the start. They don't want a mass influx of users right at the beginning.

 

[FoxKat]

Nothing for me yet. Hanging onto my Nexus 6 for this.