[Galaxy S II General] ninja0n3:
This is my first article, but I thought I might share my experience achieving this on Rogers.

The main subject of this article covers my experience in getting Visual Voice Mail (VVM) working on the SGS2 with Rogers. This may also be easily applicable under any Android device with another carrier.

I've managed to come up with this solution after reading a couple of different websites that didn't specifically explain the whole process. So the idea here is to make it easier for Canadian residents to get their hands on VVM without needing an iphone or relying on their carrier for their Voicemail needs.

There are some costs involved, but these seem minimal (from my perspective) and quite worth it.

Disclaimer: This method worked for me on Rogers with SGS2 by taking the steps explained here. I take no responsibility if something breaks, spontaneously catches fire or if your neighbor kills your dog. In other words, do it at your own risk.

Requirements:

SGS2

Google Voice Account (GV)

Google Voice App installed

Credit Card

Make sure you back up your settings and information before proceeding.

Step 1 - Setting up Google voice.

This article assumes that you currently have a working google voice account.

If you don't, a quick google search on the subject will explain to you the process for getting a GV account in Canada.

The main setting that needs to be addressed is enabling "Do Not Disturb" permanently under "Calls" in settings.

The main drawback is that if you wish to use GV as your voicemail provider, you will need to sacrifice it's calling receiving feature, as it will direct all calls directly to voice mail under this mode.

Additionally, setting up a message for whoever might be calling is also not a bad idea. But you can live with the default message provided by google by default

Step 2 - Getting a forwarding Number

This step involves getting a local or toll free number that you will use as a forwarder for your busy/unanswered/unreachable calls.

Obviously, you'd be incurring long distance charges if you were to get your voicemail calling the US every time somebody leaves a message... Not ideal wallet wise.

I went with http://www.voip.ms, they offer either local numbers or toll free numbers that you can use as a forwarding platform for your GV number.

First off, you need to sign up, fairly straight forward process.

Once you have activated your account, you will need to add some money to your account, the minimum credit that you can buy is $25. This is done under "Finances/Add Funds".

Next, you will need to set up your forwarding number. This is done in "DID Numbers/Call Forwarding". You just click "Add Forwarding", enter the GV phone number and save.

With these credits and the forwarding set up, you'll be able to add a DID Number to your account for a monthly fee (which will be charged on the credit balance). This is done through "DID Numbers/Order DID(s)".

Multiple options are presented to you, two of which would be interesting in this case:

Local Numbers/Canada

Toll Free Numbers/Canada+United States

I chose to go with the Toll Free, for a $1.49 monthly fee + $0.032 (3.2cents) every 6 seconds. That's like $25 tops for a year (if you have people overkilling your voicemail).

They offer a selection of numbers to choose from, pick the one you like the most.

Under "DID POP", choose the closest city to your current location.

Under "Routing", select Forwarding, which should have the GV number you set up earlier

Then just click on the "Click Here to confirm your order".

At this point your forwarding is set up. You may give it a try by calling the number that was provided to you and see if it routes to your GV.

Step 3 - Setting up your phone.

There are a couple of options here. If you don't currently have voicemail with your carrier, you may skip the next paragraph. If you are like me and did have voicemail service enable, read on.

I found out the hard way with Rogers that when you have voicemail service, they block the forwarding on the phone; either you forward all calls, or you don't forward at all. To remedy this, I just called sales and after explaining the situation (me wanting to use a different voicemail system that required forwarding to be enabled but not wanting to loose any of my current features in the plan - I have an iPhone value pack) they managed to disable the voicemail which allowed me to proceed with the phone setup.

Now you can set up forwarding by going to "Settings/Call/Call Forwarding/Voice Call".

In this screen, 4 options will be available:

Always Forward

Forward when busy *

Forward when unanswered *

Forward when unreachable *

You need to set up the last 3 (the ones with the * on the previous list) with the phone number that you obtained from voip.ms.

Also ensure that GV is set up on your phone and that you have activated the voicemail features on it (it will give you an error message saying that it cannot set up properly, just ignore it).

At this point, you should be able to call your cel, reject the call and direct the caller to GV for your visual voicemail needs. You will then receive the messages in your GV inbox, visually!

This worked for me and I am rather happy with the result. Hope this helps.

Let me know if you have any questions.

References:

http://adrielservice.com/blog/?p=394

Update:

I found out that carriers mask your outgoing number along with any caller ID information when calling toll free numbers. This was preventing GV from telling me what phone number the message was from as it was receiving the call from the Rogers masked generic number. This was solved by obtaining a local DID. Only disadvantage being that if you move around, the voicemail messages may become long distance calls.

Other than that, my experience with GV is great, love the visual voicemail on the Android.