You may have three different phone numbers: a home number, an office number, and a mobile number. Wouldn’t it be great to have a single phone number that could ring all three phones at the same time? Or route your calls at certain hours to one of your phones? Or automatically route your calls to specific phones based on the caller ID?
You could route family member calls to your home and mobile, while sending business associate calls to your office and mobile. And while traveling, you might route all your calls to your mobile number. If that sounds ideal, but expensive and overly complicated, you haven’t tried Google Voice.
It’s free, though you currently have to request an invitation and wait (probably a few weeks) to be accepted. Once you receive your invitation, you can sign up for a new phone number or use one of your current numbers. In addition to routing your calls, Google Voice offers Web-based voice mail, along with the option to have the voice mail automatically transcribed and sent to you as e-mail messages. You can set up custom voice mail greetings based on caller ID and use your Google Voice number to make low-cost international calls. Despite all the options, I found the Web interface to be very easy to use.
There’s even a BlackBerry app that lets you access your Google voice mail directly from your phone. You can use the BlackBerry app to call out using your Google Voice phone number rather than the phone number that’s normally attached to the phone.
You can choose from a variety of phone numbers when selecting your new Google Voice number — and it doesn’t have to be in your area code. Choose carefully, though. While the phone number is free, there’s a $10 charge if you decide to swap it for another number.
Is there a downside to Google Voice? There could be privacy concerns. If you prefer that Google not have access to your phone messages or current phone numbers, then you may not want to use this service. Otherwise, it’s an incredibly powerful application that could dramatically change the way you interact with your phones.