Scribblings

As technology progresses, there are few and fewer things that surprise you. One that surprised me recently is Google Voice; it has its history for past couple of years. But it’s forced into the lime light with the recent debacle about Apple rejecting its iPhone app. So what is this Google Voice you talk about? It all started with Google accruing Grand Central, which was a phone management service. Now after nearly 2 years of rebuilding it ground up, Google has opened shop (though invite only). Ok now we got the history lesson. What does this mean to us? For most people, absolutely nothing.

This works only in the US, and I don’t see any big advantage for the folks with ATT. Brass tax. This is basically “One phone number to control all” kind of thing. You register with GV and then you select a number (which you keep for life). Now you can forward all the calls to this number to other phones you use. What big deal? Yes big deal. Say I carry two mobile phones (business and personal) and then I have a home phone. You need to give out these numbers to people and hope they catch you on the right one on the right time. But with GV, you can set it up to ring one of these at the time you want it. You can send business calls straight to voice mail during off hours and set your mobile phone to ring when not at home. The possibilities are endless

It also has your back if you change any of your numbers, because you haven’t given it in the first place. Just enable call forward to the new number. Neat isn’t it? But it doesn’t stop there. For carriers who offer favorite numbers (like T-Mobile) or give free incoming, GV could be completely free, as in F-R-E-E. If you have a smart phone, install the GV app and dial a local (within) US number. Google doesn’t charge anything for its service and since your GV number is in your Fav 5, T-Mobile doesn’t charge anything either.

It also promises stellar voice quality, SMS (so that you don’t have to give your mobile number for it), conferencing and a web interface (one even customized for mobile browser) to control everything. It also has apps for Android, WM, Blackberry and the iPhone (though you need to jailbreak it to use this).

So guys, happy talking.