Google has made their web phone service Google Voice available to everyone in the United States. This is great news for anyone that wants to save money on their phone bill and to those looking for some privacy as well.
What is Google Voice?
Google Voice is a web-based platform to help you manage your communications. It provides you one number to ring all your phones, voicemail that works like email, free calls and text messages to the U.S. and Canada, low-priced international calls and more.
What are some of its features?
- give out one number that will ring all your phones
- get transcribed voicemails sent to your inbox
- Voicemail transcription: Voicemail messages will be automatically transcribed to text and sent to you via email and/or SMS.
- Define which phones ring, based on who’s calling
- Works with mobile phones, desk phones, and work phones. There’s nothing to download, upload, or install, and you don’t have to make or take calls using a computer.
- If you have a smartphone you can download the mobile app to make calls directly from your smartphone.
How can it help you save money?
Google voice allows you to make free calls to the US and Canada as well as free text messages & make cheap international calls. Here is how I intend to use Google voice to help me save money: Since our move to another state my husband an I decided to get rid of our land line. That posed a huge problem for me because international calls from my cell phone are very expensive. Google Voice offers international rates at half the cost of what I would be paying if I had a landline, let alone what the mobile rates are. Now I can call my family in other countries and bypass those ridiculous telephone fees and surcharges.
How can it help improve your privacy?
Google Voice assigns you a number that will ring to your home or mobile phone, so people can contact you if you want. But that is not your real number. You can use this number to provide on websites where they ask you for a phone number like survey sites or when you order online. It also has some great blocking capabilities.
I just signed up for my Google Voice number, so I am sure the more I use it the more I will learn to maximize its use. If you already use Google Voice, make sure to share your experience in the comments section.
Thanks Jackie for bringing this up to me.
