Google Voice – About, Benefits, Cost, Savings

Google Voice is a unified voice communications service for consumers and solves the problem of having multiple contact points. Google Voice lets you switch wireless carriers without sacrificing your phone numbers and keep the same Google Phone Number as your mobile identity.

Google Voice has a ‘follow-me‘ service that unifies both wireless and wireline communications. Google Voice provides one number for voice calls.

Google Voice also serves as a hub for SMS as it lets users send text messages from any of their devices or even from their computer.

Google Voice has the ability to provide automated voicemail transcriptions that can be sent through both SMS and through standard email. With this service, users can get the gist of a voicemail without dialing into their voicemail service and listening through an entire message.

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You can program your Google phone number to ring on multiple devices if you want to, including both mobile and landline phones. An important incoming call to your office can also ring simultaneously on your cell phone and your home phone if you happen to be away from your desk.

Google Voice makes calls through the standard public telephone network. When you place a call to someone using Google Voice on your device, it essentially routes the call through the Google cloud, which then sends the call out to its final destination. This way, the person receiving your call sees the call coming from your Google phone number rather than the number given by your wireless carrier.

You will still have to pay your wireless carrier for minutes used over Google Voice, because Google Voice is not a VOIP service. Google Voice is not an alternative to using up minutes from your standard wireless carrier.

Google Voice is currently available only for US customers. Google has already purchased 1 million US phone numbers to give to its users. Google promises to extend the service to other countries as well. Not sure how long India have to wait to have the Google Voice and Voice Mail Transcription service.

Read more about Google Voice at Google website.