Google Voice is all about enabling choice: which phone you pick up your calls on, where to review your voicemail messages, how to send and reply to text messages, etc.  So when it comes to your phone number, it was logical for us to also offer a choice of which number to use with Google Voice.

Previously, when you created a Google Voice account, we asked you to select a new Google phone number. This allowed us to offer features like call forwarding, screening, and recording.  But we know not everyone wants to start using a new phone number, so we've been working on another option for people who are willing to trade some features for the ability to keep their existing number.

We're excited to announce that you now can get Google Voice with a Google number OR with your existing mobile phone number. If you choose to use Google Voice with your existing number, you won't get some features (like call screening and recording), but you'll still get many others -- including Google voicemail:



More specifically, if you sign up for Google Voice with your existing number, you'll get:
  • Online, searchable voicemail
  • Free automated voicemail transcription
  • Custom voicemail greetings for different callers
  • Email and SMS notifications
  • Low-priced international calling
If you decide to also get a new Google number, you'll get all of the above PLUS:
  • One number that reaches you on all your phones
  • SMS via email
  • Call screening
  • Listen In
  • Call recording
  • Conference calling
  • Call blocking
If you already have a Google number, this new feature should also help with the transition to your new number, as you can now forward unanswered calls to your mobile phone to your Google Voice account.  This way, people who still call your old number will reach the same voicemail as people who call your Google Voice number.

If you already use Google Voice, you can add Google voicemail to any mobile phone you've linked to your account.  If you're not using Google Voice yet, you can request an invitation or ask someone with a Google Voice account to invite you.  When you receive the invitation to sign-up, you decide whether you'd like to use Google Voice with your existing number or get a Google number.

Posted by Pierre Lebeau, Product Manager
Posted by Unknown
Labels: Google Voice Blog
Thanks for all of your feedback on last week's Hangouts launch. We just posted an update on Google Voice and Hangouts on Google+.
To help make it even easier for you to organize your contacts, today we’re adding Google+ Circles to Google Voice.
Sometimes the times that we’re offline can be our most productive times. However, whether on a plane or out of range of coverage, it’d still be nice to be able to draft text messages.
(Cross-posted from the Gmail blog)

As the holiday season approaches, we're happy to announce that we've extended free domestic calls within the US and Canada for 2012. This is our way of helping you connect with friends and family across the country.
MMS has been one of the constant feature requests since we launched Google Voice and we’ve been hard at work trying to make this happen.

Today, we're happy to announce that we've made the first step in our efforts to bring this feature to our users.
Until now, if you changed your Google Voice number, ported your number to Google Voice, or opted in for the Sprint Option 1 integration (where your Sprint number becomes your Google Voice number), your previous Google Voice number remained on your account for 90 days before it was returned to Google
It’s official, the Google Voice integration with Sprint is now live!

As we mentioned when we first announced the integration, there are two ways to bring Google Voice to your Sprint mobile phone:

Option 1: Keep your Sprint number: Your Sprint number becomes your Google Voice number so that when pe
All things Google Voice!
All things Google Voice!
Twitter Updates


Archive
Archive
Loading