Sprint has announced that on June 1st, it’ll be ending its long-offered Google Voice integration, which let users use their regular Sprint number on their phone as a Google Voice number, via Android Police.
The partnership with Google dates back to 2011, when the two companies teamed up to integrate Sprint numbers with Google’s then-nascent Voice service, letting you use your existing number through Sprint with Google Voice, complete with call and message forwarding, the Google Voice online interface, and transcribed voicemails, which were revolutionary features back in 2011.
Despite Google’s oftentimes neglectful management of Google Voice (the app went years without updates until 2017), Sprint has still dutifully supported the functionality all this time until now.
For users who were using the integration, Sprint notes that, starting on June 1st, outgoing calls and messages will be made through Sprint, not Google Voice (at Sprint’s rate), and they will no longer be stored in Google Voice’s app and website. Customers are advised to disable the integration before then to make sure things transition smoothly.
Sprint users will still be able to use Google Voice as a forwarding service (just like customers with other carriers have done for years) if they still want to take advantage of those features. They’ll just need to sign up for a new Google Voice number from Google to do so.