The Arrival of Google Voice!
Well, last night I finally got the invite I’ve been waiting for from Google. They opened up Google Voice beyond existing Grand Central customers. Judging by the hiccups I experienced with verifying my mobile number, there were several other (a buttload rather) folks rushing to do the same! Google will not yet be opening this service to the pubic, but you are able to signup for an invite. Not sure of the turn around for the invite seeing how I put mine in over months ago!
So what is Google Voice?
Google Voice (GV) is a free internet service that uses Voice Over IP (VOIP) to link customer’s phone numbers together for centralized management of contacts, voicemail, sms, a many other features. Some of the major features include:
- US based calling free
- One number to ring many phones
- Phone Routing
- Phone Forwarding
- Voicemail Transcripts
- Call Record
So what does all this mean to someone that’s not a nerd?! The biggest feature (in my opinion) has yet to be released even to the chosen few that currently have access to the service. What feature is that you might ask…..Number Portability. You will be able to port your current land line or mobile number over to GV in the future. I see this being the end all of actual land line based “Home Phones.” You port your Home Phone number over to GV and then setup your mobile number, and voila, you can now get all your calls straight to your cell, or maybe you want them to come to your desk while at work, or maybe you want to get the calls to your phone at work to your mobile without giving out your mobile number, DONE!
Does it Actually Work?
Yes it does! I’ve only had a few hours to actually play with it, because verification of my mobile number (an existing number is required for voice services to work) took forever, I’m sure due to a high volume of traffic on the site last night. After verification was complete, I was able to do some test calls in and out, as well as voicemail, sms, and call recording. There are still many features that I have not been able to test yet, so more to come later!
How Does it Work?
Without going into all kinds of super boring technical jargon, I’ll try to make this brief and simple. As far as SMS is concerned, it’s like any other “chat” client, just forwarded to whatever number you want. When someone sends my GV number a SMS, it then not only gets displayed within my GV inbox, but also forwarded to a phone of my choice, or any number of phones I may so desire! The calling features are what is really cool. An incoming call is forwarded to my choice of phone (s) much in the same way of SMS messages. The outgoing calls however, if initiated from the web interface, take place as such:
- Call initiated from Web UI
- You then receive a call on your registered phone(s)
- The call is then forwarded from your registered phone to the person you are actually calling
Strange process, but as in most scenarios, I’m sure Google has made sure this is the easiest and most efficient way to do so!
You can also initiate outbound calls from a registered phone (possibly unregistered as well “UNTESTED”) by calling your GV number, and selecting the appropriate menu commands.
What Doesn’t it Have?
First off, let me say thank you to Google for another great free service! Secondly the fact that GV is a free service makes most of these things frivolous wants! Here is some of the feedback I’ve given Google so far:
- The addition of a Heads Up Display (HUD) with a dialing pad would be nice
- Using different color text for names in SMS, or SMS threading similar to iChat
- The ability to create custom phone types (ie. Work Cell, Work Desk, etc.)
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
[...] More here: Google Voice is Here! | The PhenixbluE [...]