I'm actually late to the entire conversation (hey, I was at lunch) but
I've used Google Voice with my Android phone on T-Mobile for over a
year now (I was part of the Google Voice pre-pre beta stuff, lucky me)
so I may be able to lend some help with this.

And, like the rude jerk I am, I'm going to be replying to snippets
from specific messages all at once rather than just replying to each
individual email individually.

Caveats- I use a Nexus One, which means I get *zero* support from
T-Mobile for my phone. Further it means that there's no T-Mobile
taint... *ahem* "branding* on it, which probably helps a lot in my
day-to-day workings with it.

> Anyway, I was wondering if anyone on the list uses GV + Android + T-mobile
> and what their experience has been.

My personal experience has been *very* positive. But I'll wager that
has a lot to do with the fact that I've go no T-Mobile gunk on my
phone getting in my way preventing me from just using Android and GV
directly.

If you somehow can just use stock Android, Google Voice integrates
seamlessly into it.

> Also, in reading about GV, it says I have to get a new phone number. How
> does that number relate to my mobile number, or is it something in the
> background that the world does not see?

As Bill pointed out, there's apparently a new way to grab your
existing cell number and use it with GV. That however is too new for
me, so I've never used it.

I have a GV number and a T-Mobile number. I personally found
T-Mobile's voicemail annoying and cumbersome last time I used it
(which, admittedly, was two years ago :-) so I actually integrated my
standard T-Mobile number into my GV voicemail. This means when you
call my normal T-Mobile number, and I don't answer, it goes to GV for
voicemail. I find this a *terribly* handy feature as it means I can
get email notifications, SMS notifications, text translations (often
times with hilarious results), etc and so on.

There's probably better, more official ways to do this, but IIRC this
is how I did this:
http://thebogles.com/blog/2009/04/how-to-replace-your-cellphones-voice-mail-with-google-voice/

I also have my GV number forward to my T-Mobile number, but I'll admit
I very rarely use that number any more (I used to use it for a
business I ran...)

> If I understand correctly, there is a cost to use GV, so I pay for that. And
> I get billed minutes from my carrier to use GV. Am I correct?

When *I* use GV strictly over Wifi (or even over 3G, due to my plan) I
don't get billed any minute usage (or any additional usage
whatsoever). But, again, I'm not using a branded T-Mobile Android
phone. I'd wager that official branded T-Mobile phones probably have
all sorts of nastiness in them that prevent this sort of shenanigoats
from happening (and that's why I'll never buy a branded phone, thank
you kindly :-)

                                      ---Sam
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