With Google Voice you can do all this:

One number for all your calls and SMS

• Call screening – Announce and screen callers
• Listen in – Listen before taking a call
• Block calls – Keep unwanted callers at bay
• SMS – Send, receive, and store SMS
• Place calls – Call free within the continental US and to Canada
• Taking calls – Answer on any of your phones
• Phone routing – Phones ring based on who calls
• Forwarding phones – Add phones and decide which ring

Voicemail as easy as email, with transcripts

• Voicemail transcripts – Read what your voicemail says
• Listen to voicemail – Check online or from your phone
• Notifications – Receive voicemails via email or SMS
• Personalize greeting – Vary greetings by caller
• Share voicemail – Forward or download voicemails

To get a Google Voice account, you’ll need a Google email account (Gmail). Once you have a Gmail account you can go to http://google.com/voice from there you can request for an invite and  it might take some times before you get the invitation, if you cannot wait there alternatives like ebay, a message boards etc, where you can request or purchase an invites for as low as a couple of bucks.

How does calling for free works? Google Voice is only available in the US currently and how it works is that if your phone company is with Verizon and you have the Friends and Family plan then just add the Google Voice number that Google gave you into the Verizon’s Friends and Family plan, there you can make an unlimited calls to anyone in the US, International does cost money to make calls but it looks to be affordable.

There are limitations based on what I have read on GV forums which causes limitations on phone careers like with AT&T A-List plan (Similar to Verizon Friends and Family plan). If you added Google Voice into the AT&T A-List plan there might be some limitations but for the limitations someone will always come out with a fix.

I have not began using this feature as I am on a Pre-Paid phone, but even that this can be use without costing me any minutes. For example if someone calls me on my phone and I don’t answer it, that call will be forwarded to my Google Voice mail and I can retrieve the message online on Google Voice without having to use up any minutes. Pretty neat  I must say and that is just one of the many features I can use it on.

Try Google Voice and see if it is right for you or you can help me test this features out by calling me on the Google Voice Widget below (Click it).

Google Voice Video

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