I now have 3 phone numbers, all of which have a disturbingly incestual relationship. This is by necessity, since I live in China, still have friends, family, and colleagues in the US who might need to get ahold of me, and want to make things as easy as possible for everyone involved (except me, apparently).

So I have:
1) A China Mobile cell phone number (China).
2) A SkypeIn number (US).
3) A Google Voice number (US).

When someone calls my Chinese cell phone, it rings. Yes, just like a normal cell phone. It doesn’t play the Asian Riff, or “Chopsticks,” or summon a dragon to deliver a message from my ancestors, it just plays the default Nokia ring tone.

Problem number one, of course, is that anyone calling this phone from the US is going to get hit with all kinds of charges.

Hence the SkypeIn number, which is a local US number. It has two purposes: when I’m signed into Skype, anyone calling the number will ring my PC, which I can then pick up and talk to them for free; and when I’m offline, it will automatically forward to my Chinese cell phone, which I can then pick up and talk to them for 2.8 cents a minute.

Not bad, and one would think my problems end here. Naturally, this is not the case.

Enter problem number two, which is actually twofold: my Chinese cell phone has no voicemail service (I actually don’t know if any Chinese cell phones do), and Skype’s voicemail does not work properly, specifically in that it does not work.

So I also have a Google Voice number, which is also local to the US. The only purpose this number has, is to forward calls to my Skype number… which in turn forwards calls to my PC or Chinese cell phone. Then, if I don’t pick up, either because I’m busy or because you dweebs forgot how to work out the time difference and tried to call me at 4am again, Google’s voicemail will pick up.

I’m just a little confused why all these VoIP companies can’t get their shit together. Skype has been in the business for ages, and has by far the most robust feature set. Yet they can’t get voicemail to work right; regardless of what settings you change in your control panel, nothing actually gets controlled, and nobody gets their voicemail recorded. Google Voice is fairly new, discounting its history as GrandCentral, and is (prematurely) being hailed as a “Skype-killer,” yet Google has decided to nix the international call forwarding option, for reasons unknown. And knowing Google’s history of eternally beta-state software, I’m not holding out hope that the feature will be added back any time soon.

I hate jumping through hoops, especially unnecessary ones. This does beg the question why I decided to move to China, where the bureaucracy is even more impenetrable and labyrinthine than the US, but that’s human nature for you.

Working on posts that are actually related to stuff going on here in China, but, you know. I’m lazy.