On Friday reports hit the Internet that folks who tried the new Google Voice features for Sprint mobile phones found that the features just didn"t work as advertised for some. Now Engadget, who first broke the story on all these problems, has now gotten official responses from both Google and Sprint on the matter. Furthermore, some Sprint customers who found themselves unable to activate the Google voice features have now told Engadget their services are back online.
The main issue is that some Sprint customers have been unable to activate the Google Voice features. Sprint is now telling Engadget it promises a "mid-May solution" for their customers on this matter. This seems like a long time and the article doesn"t go into detail as to why there have been so many Google Voice activation issues in the first place. However at least something is being done compared to before where pretty much nothing was being fixed. Also the Google Voice forums actually have Google employees answering questions from customers now. Again, Google"s lack of response was one of the main reasons behind the original Engadget article.
Other problems with Google Voice and Sprint are being either fixed or compensated for such as customers getting charged with high international call rates due to Google Voice"s much lower rates not kicking in. Google has now said it will reimburse anyone who had that happen to them. Engadget, however is still sticking to the bottom line it had in its previous article; if you are a Sprint customer there"s no need to jump into the Google Voice fray until all of the bugs and issues are fixed (hopefully) in the next few weeks.