What is Google Voice?

An Overview of Google Voice
Google Voice is the new name for Google's GrandCentral email
forwarding system, which will give the user a phone number for their
Google Voice account. You can then give this number out to people, and
when they call you, you can then store their incoming number, so
that you can have a different ring tone for them, and store their
number in a group, like "friends", "the boss", or "family". Once
stored, you can change the settings for each individual caller,
routing their calls to specific phones, the computer or straight to
voice mail.

At no cost to the user, except for your normal telephone charges,
Google Voice will forward voicemail to where you have routed the
number to go, so that a voicemail from your wife would go straight to
your 3-G phone, and one from your boss would go straight to your cell
phone or laptop. And the computer can read the voicemail to you, as
long as you have voice recognition software installed and running
properly. Phone calls into your cell phone can be taken at the
computer, and vice-versa, making one number have complete control over
all of your telecommunications gear.

Google Voice has the potential to take over the telecommunications
market with the demographics of people between the ages of 16 and up.
If you have a land-line telephone, cellular telephone, and voice over
Internet protocol (VOIP) phone numbers, you can have all of them ring
at the same time when receiving a call through Google Voice. On top of
your computer ringing as well, in order to amalgamate all of your
telephones into one customizable service, you will be able to block,
avoid or include any incoming calls, from any source, through any
source.

When you combine a Google Voice phone number, at no cost, with your
existing telephone numbers, landline and/or mobile, you can have all
of your phones ring at the same time when you have an incoming Google
Voice phone call. Answer the call
with any, or the closest phone, or leave it to Google to take care of
if you are busy, or just don't want to talk to who's calling. Google
Voice has caller ID, which will show you the name, phone number,
Google Voice number, email address and/or screen name of the person
calling.

For people who are hard of hearing, the deaf, or the simply lazy,
Google Voice will be able to display the name of the person calling
your cell phone on your computer's display. You will also be able to
have a different ring announcement for each number that calls, so you
can have the computer say "Mom is calling" when you mother calls. For
people that you do not want to talk to, you can put their name or
number in the blocked calls list, and when they call you, their call
will go straight to voicemail.

Google Voice's voicemail feature is also interactive, allowing you to
read what the voicemail says, or listen to it. International calls are
offered at extremely competitive rates, and you can share your
voicemails with all of your contacts, some of them, or just one, and
you can download the voicemails as well. This is ideal for when you
enter into contracts over the phone, so that you can prove what the
caller actually told you, making aggressive sales pitches easier to
disprove.

Answer your cell phone with the computer, or answer your computer with
your 3-G phone, it is all the same, and the only costs will be your
normal phone access fees. The best part of Google Voice, though, may
be the ability to have your computer read your voice messages to you,
or to store all cell phone calls for later reading.

There may be a line-up of lawyers waiting to file lawsuits with the
ability to record cell phone conversations without the caller first
being told that the call may be recorded, but the service, if working
as described, should revolutionize the personal phone market.

Google Voice will revolutionize your phone use, and blow your mind.