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May 1, 2009
A Revolution—Coming Soon to Your Telephones
Just when you thought that telephone calling, answering,
texting, and voicemail couldn’t get much better, be prepared for a revolution.
And by that, I mean get ready now. A new service intent on overhauling how we
use our telephones is literally weeks away.
And, best of all, it will be free. How is this possible? Think
Google! The company that seems to be doing everything right these days is about
to change the way we communicate on the phone.
Here’s how it’ll work. When you sign up for the free Google
Voice service, you’ll be assigned a new phone number for life that takes the
place of all your other phone numbers if you wish. Even if you have multiple
homes, land lines, business lines, and cell phones, all of them can be
represented by your single Google Voice “uni-number.” No longer will someone
have to track you down by calling different numbers. In your Google Voice
account on the web, you’ll indicate which of your phones will ring when a call
comes in. You can customize this for each of your contacts or for groups of
contacts.
You can answer a call on any of your ringing phones, and the
caller will be announced (if you’ve turned on call screening). You’ll then have
several options: accept the call, take a message, listen in on the message as
it’s being recorded, or accept and record the call. If you elect to listen in on
a message being recorded, you can choose to take the call whenever.
You can start recording a telephone conversation at anytime;
this is perfect when it’s inconvenient for you to write down directions or a
phone number. You can also switch phones in the middle of a call. And, as you
might expect, Google Voice will support call waiting and conferencing as well as
free text messaging.
Set up any number of voicemail greetings and have a particular
greeting played depending on the caller. Voicemail messages to your Google
number can be picked up from any of your telephones or from your Google Voice
account on the web. You can even have Google Voice transcribe your messages and
e-mail them to you as they come in. Voicemail messages will be saved in your
Google Voice inbox on the web where you can sort, search, forward, and save them
just like e-mail messages.
Customize your Google number to move all calls from a certain
someone to your spam folder or block them entirely (“the number you have reached
is not in service…”).
Placing calls is just as easy. You can make a call from any of
your telephones (land line or cell) and have the caller ID be your Google Voice
number.
And get this—any call you place to anyone in the USA is free.
That’s right, you heard me, free. And international calls will be dirt cheap (a
few cents per minute).
The revolution isn’t coming…it’s here!
This is Larry Schneider, logging off.
