SURbit Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 RingTo and GrooVe IP Announcement: You now have to pay for what was once free ! ! ! Important RingTo Service Changes RingTo launched over two years ago with a simple mission: help more people keep the phone numbers they love. In the spirit of moving forward, several changes are coming down the pipeline we want to share with you. In early 2016, RingTo will transition to a paid service and will no longer offer free accounts to new or existing users. But don’t worry, we’re making it worth your while to stay with us! How does this affect you? RingTo users with ported phone numbers Existing RingTo users with ported numbers will have until February 15th to convert to a paid plan or find an alternative provider. GrooVe IP users You will receive instructions soon on how to move your account to the all-new Groove IP platform. Obihai users Your existing service with RingTo will conclude in the coming months. We are actively working with partners to help find a new home for your phone number where you can continue to enjoy using your Obi at home or at work. Expect an announcement with more details in mid-January. Show your interest in a RingTo paid plan by January 1st and get the Early Bird discount (2 FREE months of service) by entering your email now. RingTo is priced at just $1.50 per month ($18 billed annually) and includes: Call forwarding SMS & MMS Voicemail iOS/Android calling Dynamic outbound number selection Call blocking Free number porting Show your interest in a RingTo paid plan by January 1st with instructions on how to convert your account and claim your bonus two months of service. Interested in a paid plan? Enter your email here *Please note: You will not be charged anything yet. https://ring.to/#newservice ======================= Important GrooVe IP Service Changes Coming Up in 2016 GrooVe IP launched almost five years ago to help mobile phone/tablet users make and receive calls over a data connection without using cellular minutes. For the first three years, GrooVe IP worked in conjuction with Google Voice. Since May of 2014, GrooVe IP has been using the RingTo network as its backend. RingTo is now transitioning from a free service to a paid, subscription-based service. This will cause changes for GrooVe IP as well. Starting in early 2016, GrooVe IP will transition to a paid service model. But don't worry, we're making it worth your while to stay with us! You will be able to keep your existing GrooVe IP phone number. Also coming soon will be a brand new material UI and icon, as well as new features such as SMS/MMS, and much more. We will share details with you (on this page and on our Facebook page) as they become available. http://snrblabs.com/GrooVeIp/Upcoming_Changes ===================================== Well looks like I'm going to have to hunt or Pay-up now. Since I only have a Data SIMs I'm working with, GrooVe IP is my perfered choice of the two. I do like the app GV IP on my phone for it's many options, but, I have numbers stored/parked on RingTo site. They went and done - Got - greedy didn't they... I Would like to hear from OTHERS here (maybe) in the same boat with me, for any ideals. Work-a-rounds, better options, etc. Who knows maybe by charging it will become better? There's still NEWS to come from Groove IP, possibly with a better plan, maybe cheaper costs. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SURbit Posted December 17, 2015 Author Share Posted December 17, 2015 More details from the RingTo Beta Google Group, In 2016 RingTo will be entering a maintenance period. What that means is you should not count on new features. The last "major" feature will be contact list integration. After that we'll address critical bugs, should any arise. There will be a skeleton staff to ensure the service remains up and running. After a lot of number crunching and analysis of user call trends, we saw that the average use of minutes across the entire RingTo base of monthly active users is about 100 minutes. Based on that we crunched some more numbers and determined that if enough people sign up at $18/year, we are willing to let the service continue. We made it affordable in the hopes to attract as many of the 11,000 users who ported their number in. The email blast was light on details. I'll try to hit the common questions here: 1. Cost - $18/yr per account. Not per number. Tax is not included. 2. Usage - The Terms of Service currently sets a limit of 5,000 minutes of use per month. In order to keep costs low at $18/yr, we will be reducing the limit to 300. Your initial reaction will be WTF! Go back and re-read the part about the average use across the entire base. The limit is to protect against abuse. Have we ever enforced the TOS for abuse? Yup, but only in the most egregious cases. In other words, this is not something that we really want to enforce. If the group average creeps up, the highest users will be getting a note from us, along with possible suspension of service. If you dial into a party line all day long (you know who you are AND I KNOW who you are), RingTo is not for you. 3. 911 support – Nope. As a pure OTT app and call forwarding solution, there will not be any e911 support unless there is an FCC mandate. 4. Obihai – If you use an Obi, you are not only in the 1%, you are in the 0.01% (again, figuratively speaking). You are a very special group of users who tend to be highly technical and very familiar with the nuances of VoIP. You generally don’t want a pre-packaged solution, you want the flexibility of mixing / matching your device and VoIP providers. You want to save money and you want a rock-solid service. Based on the small number of users we have on RingTo, there was no reasonable price point we could offer that would allow us to support Obi devices while also offering 911 capabilities and the extra support overhead on our side for managing the tickets we get from Obi users. Rather than offer an unreasonably priced service, we’ve elected to be up front and are committed to helping you find an alternative provider that will support your Obi device. We are working with Obihai to help identify partners that would like to roll out the welcome mat for existing RingTo users. Which leads to the next point. 5. Anveo 911 – Did you just renew? Wondering if you’ll actually get a year of e911 service for that $15? We’re working with Anveo right now to sort out how to best offer a transition period. More news will come. 6. GrooVe IP – GrooVe IP will be sending out a notice in the near future about their new and improved app experience. GrooVe IP and RingTo will be parting ways in 2016. It has been an incredible partnership that has brought value to both parties. 7. Timing – RingTo is marching towards a February transition for users that are interested in continuing. While the actual dates may change, the direction of the service will not. For both GrooVe IP and Obi users, the timing of a transition will be announced in January. 8. Betas – There will likely be one more beta before the end of 2015, focused on contact list integration. No plans for more betas in 2016 at the moment. Is $18/yr worth the price? That is a personal decision for each of you to make. I will put on my “sales” hat and just remind you of the following: 1. Most people have a cell phone and really just need a simple / cheap place to park/forward their number. If that sounds like you, RingTo is probably going to be one of the most cost effective solutions for you. 2. RingTo has NEVER inserted ads or sold your information to advertisers. Monetization through advertising is just not in our DNA. 3. RingTo is the only app on the market today that allows you to dynamically select your outbound number. No other app does it. In fact, we have a patent pending on that feature. If you have multiple phone numbers, RingTo is likely still a good deal for you. Is this goodbye? Hopefully not. For those of you that have been part of RingTo for over six months know that we try to give you as much transparency as possible. If there is no interest from our community in seeing RingTo as a service worth paying for, then the alternative is an orderly shutdown for everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SURbit Posted December 17, 2015 Author Share Posted December 17, 2015 I've been logging into RingTo and then GrooVe IP account there as well Trying to add a number in a porting-in, as Tuesday I told the carrier I want to port out. Strange that all the links work around my accounts page but, the adding the number check hangs on both accounts... I don't know if they have entered into a Pre-maintenance period already. I've sent a support email and they haven't answered yet, so after a lengthy web search I found a service that will let you park your ported number there for awhile. There reads to be a special to the one time charge from $10.00 to $5.00 right now and then after it's only a $2.00 monthly charge, so initial charge is $7.00 (Don't check the box - Annual Charge) as I didn't and only paid a $7.00 Fee. Course it's $2.00 each month I'm parked there, they also offer a forwarding service too for more $$ This seems to be the cheapest I've found without going the VOIP route. If your interested see this link- https://www.numberbarn.com/features It'll do for right now till RingTo or GrooVe IP puts forth more information. Thought I'd add this info. for others - HOPE some adds better option to the thread EDIT - just tried again and got this now- Sorry, we cannot transfer your number right now: Unable to provide coverage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallhagrid Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 Older versions of GrooveIP still work with GV but are hard to find. I always avoided ringto & many other providers as they seemed sketchy to me. Circlenet.us is very, very good & cheaper than most ITSPs. Textplus Gold is very good for SMS & calls & includes a free US number. Some versions of the GV app also are very good for data-only situations. I use several ITSPs via Android & Wifi as well as GV & an Obi box. Acrobits is a very good softphone that I use for calls with various ITSPs. Look around a little & it is easy to find good solutions for free calling & even SMS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SURbit Posted December 24, 2015 Author Share Posted December 24, 2015 On 12/21/2015 at 3:38 PM, smallhagrid said: Older versions of GrooveIP still work with GV but are hard to find. I always avoided ringto & many other providers as they seemed sketchy to me. Circlenet.us is very, very good & cheaper than most ITSPs. Textplus Gold is very good for SMS & calls & includes a free US number. Some versions of the GV app also are very good for data-only situations. I use several ITSPs via Android & Wifi as well as GV & an Obi box. Acrobits is a very good softphone that I use for calls with various ITSPs. Look around a little & it is easy to find good solutions for free calling & even SMS. I see a lot of useful information you've given, it's not that I need a free calling or tex/sms service. I more less need to park some phone numbers for free, that has been possible with RingTo till it's announcement that it's moving to a charging service. As I have read GrooVe is 5 years old and RingTo just two. If GrooVe had been smart when Google banned such services uses with voice, and started up then it's own entity as it now has too, it might be free still or at least be in a better position opposed to right now. I have a Data SIMs in my phone that I pull the internet service to my PC with and was using GrooVe for my calls on same Data only service SIMs card, texts seemed to work this way by the native android texting app. over my data only service with my phone but all my calls didn't work over data till I used the GrooVe app.which I'm happy with and willing to stay with. The services I been finding that will hold your number for you, all charge for this now, as I have about 5 numbers I own and would like to keep but am not wanting to pay to park them or port them to a paid holding service. Do you know a free for now service or even at a minimal cost holding service that cheaper than $18.00 yearly ? I don't wish for Google anything - if my phone wasn't an android - I'd have nothing to do with Google monopoly empire... Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halteclere Posted December 27, 2015 Share Posted December 27, 2015 Five hours a month? That's just a single call from my mom, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
palmpre3 Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 why bother using such paid service while Google voice is still free? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SURbit Posted January 13, 2016 Author Share Posted January 13, 2016 On 12/27/2015 at 2:09 AM, Halteclere said: Five hours a month? That's just a single call from my mom, lol. If you talked to all the family (if it's a big one) what's the total? MoM's need love too. Next month make it double ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SURbit Posted January 13, 2016 Author Share Posted January 13, 2016 Been talking to RingTo "" In mid-November we switched to a brand new UI layout. Unfortunately we are still working out the kinks for browser compatibility. IE seems to have the most issues right now."" ""I went through your ticket history and looked at your account. It is unclear to me why you are running into issues porting this number back to RingTo. I checked our systems and the number should be able to port without issue."" ""Can you please re-attempt the porting process using Google Chrome or Firefox? After you login to RingTo, click on your name to reveal a drop-down menu. "" ""Currently, new port requests must be initiated from the RingTo web site at this time. OK - To make things a little easier, can you please login to RingTo with your @gmail account on RingTo with Chrome, then add the number to your account. When you get to the verification screen, pick SMS or call (it does not matter). Let me know when you are done."" When I couldn't start this process of porting in to RingTo I went with a service called NumberBarn, just to park my number, parking or storing my number with NumberBarn in their basic service (park) doesn't allow for anything other than just that, In other words no call forwarding. I forgot to mention I didn't hit sms or call yesterday when I logged on from chrome, as I had no way to respond to it and didn't want to complicate matters. This was before you had asked me to do as in your most resent email. You should be able to track it now. ""We tie verification attempts to email IDs. It appears that you may not have been logged in when you did the verification attempt, so I am unable to flag your account with the tools at my disposal. Once we have an audit trail that your account made the attempt, I can flag the attempt as successful. Sorry to make you go through this step one more time."" So finally I'm to this point- We just wanted to let you know that your number port has been approved and the process will begin on 01-13-2016. You will receive a confirmation email once your phone number is fully activated in RingTo. It has taken some time and the support from RingTo has been super. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SO Now It's Done - I'm Ported over To RINGTO ! took less than 24Hrs. Congratulations, your personal number is now active on RingTo. Be sure to log in and configure your number for forwarding or customize your outgoing message Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SURbit Posted January 13, 2016 Author Share Posted January 13, 2016 On 1/10/2016 at 4:03 PM, palmpre3 said: why bother using such paid service while Google voice is still free? Not free in many ways to my case. 1. $20.00 to port a number in to Google Voice. (port out is only $3.00). 2. Privacy, privacy, privacy, privacy 3. Why let volumes of your personal life be recorded by Google. RingTo port in is FREEEEEEEEEEE. Keeping your number there - they are going to start charging you, but it's useable to you - not just parked/stored. NtmberBarn was $5.00 for the port and $2.00 a month for storing it, no use of it except a 30sec. message you make for calls to your number. So NumberBarn for a year would be $29.00 port+12 months storage. To have forwarding is more of a monthly charge - 2 plans, unlimited on one. RingTo once it starts charging is $18.00 a year total and I have usage of the number as SMS and Call forwarding to my current number (which is a data only number) no voice (I tether my PC from my phone for Internet) so that's where GrooVe IP comes in to link calling feature to my data only number. So yes it costs or will when RingTo starts charging but, I signed up before Jan 4 and get two months free. In the end I've cut my cable internet bill off or down to greater savings doing it like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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