Google Voice SMS bug temporarily assigns text messages a random phone number
Earlier today, I sent a text to a few people asking about today’s lunch plans. While I did get replies, they weren’t about lunch, and were instead asking why a random number sent a text asking about whether Chinese or Mexican food was the choice for today. At first, I just assumed that it was an odd, one time glitch, but further reading I found out that others had been having the problem as well. As it turns out, for a few hours earlier today, Google Voice would attach a random outbound Caller ID number for all text messages sent.
Fortunately, the problem has now been resolved, and Google Voice seems to be functioning correctly. However, Google did confirm that the entire Google Voice system was experiencing this glitch for a few hours, and the incident was not isolated. It doesn’t look like the error resulted in misdirected texts, and Google acknowledged the issue and took care of the problem as quickly as possible, but it is still cause for some concern.
The reason this story stood out to me today is that I’ve been using Google Voice as my only SMS provider for some time, and recently started to consider switching to a Google Voice/VOIP solution instead of a regular cellular service plan. While slight, this problem has made me just a bit more hesitant to drop the traditional cellular service plan. Sure, it is true that regular cell service experiences outages and glitches, and this Google Voice problem wasn’t anything too major. Still, I’ve been forced to consider whether I’m quite ready to trust the cloud with my phone service.
[The Verge]
