Once in a while something retarded may happen, something that causes you to temporarily loose your phone service. If your life seems to be governed by Murphy's Law, as mine does, than it does not hurt to have an extra phone number, and one that you can use over wifi networks. Preferably the VoIP app should allow unlimited texting and calling, and the app definitively must not contain any irritating banner ads. Ad networks are an inherent problem on Android, but there are ways to stop the privacy mongers dead in there tracks.
Perhaps the most well known 'free' voice over IP app is Talkatone. But it sucks. First of all, the banner ads and ad networks are unacceptable. With Lucky Patcher, Ad-Away, and Ad-Free (with various settings and combinations) I was able to remove all but one of Talkatones banner ads. I thought I could live with that. But then today Talkatone informed me that I used up all my free minutes. I can't deal with that. I would totally buy the pro version, if I had any money... But that is why I am in this boat to begin with.
GrooveIP is an excellent, truly free VoIP app. But it does not support text messaging (yet). However, today I discovered RingTo. This app works alongside GrooveIP, and allows you to use your current GrooveIP number for SMS. Perfect. The installation process was pretty straight forward, and within 5 minutes I had a functional phone with no ads to drive me nuts.
Hopefully Google will bring back Google Voice. Until that day, GrooveIP with RingTo is probably the way to go. I tried Textfree, WhatsApp, Textra, and a bunch of other apps. Most had privacy issues up the ass, and if it were not for Xprivacy, God only knows what could have happened to my data. So save yourself the trouble, and give GrooveIP/Ringto a try, next time you find yourself without cell service.
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