Trying to attack the phone

Okay, now I am trying to deal with the phone.  I am so tired of picking up messages from the office and my cell phone for business, along with the messages from home.  Yes, the office phone and the home phone transcribe the numbers and email them to me (and clog up my email), but so far the cell phone, Verizon, does not transcribe the messages (I think).  Also, the office phone, which is Vonage, is terrible.  I am constantly repeating myself and the connection is awful.  I don't know if it is Vonage or the internet provider, but our internet provider was up graded and seems to be working wonderfully.

So now I am trying to figure out what to do.  I have a dormant Google Voice account, which I have had floating around in the back of my head thinking that it might be a fix, but I am trying to understand what to do next with it.  I could port my Vonage number to the Google Voice account (which will also transcribe), and maybe even set up my cell phone to forward to the GV account (I think) and then all of the messages would be transcribed and in Google Voice.  Still trying to understand if I can look at the messages somewhere other than on my phone.  Downside of Google Voice - International Calling is not free - I don't use it that much, but I do use it sometimes, but it will probably be cheaper than Vonage monthly.

I also looked at Skype, but their website is very difficult to get any real answers.  They have cool videos that give you a conceptual look at the whole thing, but every answer has a disclaimer, e.g. your number is portable if you live in a country that has number portability - Why not just have me answer a few questions, like what country I am in, and then give me an accurate answer.  I probably need to figure out how to talk to a person.  But then I am not clear on whether the voicemail gets transcribed.

Okay, so I kinda am leaning toward Google Voice, if I can figure it out.  But then there is the issue of fax numbers.  I have to have a fax number because I work in an industry (law) where faxing is very popular, and I can almost never get people to scan and email instead.  I don't know if Google has some sort of email fax, but I know that there are email fax services.  I need to investigate that further, and see if the fax number is portable, although I am not so worried about changing that number.  Clients and prospects do not fax to me, they email or leave voicemail.

Anyway, this is my technology struggle for today.  Comments welcomed.