New version of Google Voice offers voice mail features with your exiting number
Google Voice has been a rather controversial service since it debuted. The service allows a user to give out one phone number for their office, mobile, and landline phones to users and get the calls on whatever device they are using. The big catch to the service so far has been that it required users to change to a new Google Voice phone number.
Google announced today that is rolling out a new version of Google Voice for users who want to retain their exiting number. The new service allows callers to have calls they don’t answer forwarded to a Google Voice mailbox. The new “lite” version of Google Voice has many of the notable features from the full version.
The lite service allows users to access their voice mails on their phone as usual or on their computer. The service also allows users to have specific greetings for voice mail for each number that calls them. The voice mails are also turned into text that can be read and can be sent to you as a text message if you prefer.
The new service is an attempt to grab a larger share of mobile phone users who aren’t interested in giving up their number. Reuters reports that Google doesn't fear any complaints from mobile carriers. The reason is that they all already have call forwarding in place and they continue to charge for minutes even when the call is being forwarded.
Google's Craig Walker said, "Virtually all the carriers already allow this [call forwarding]. It allows them to continue running the meter, they charge per minute while I'm on that diverted call."
The full Google Voice service is expected to be available to the general public soon. Any indication of an exact launch date has not been given at this time. For now, users can only get access to Google Voice by requesting an invite or getting an invite from a user of Google Voice.
Google and Apple have been fighting a public battle over the Google Voice App that Apple failed to approve. The situation has drawn the interest of the FCC.
DailyTech - Google Voice Now Offers Service with Existing Numbers
