Google Voice is a telephone service that provides a U.S. telephone number to Google Account customers in the U.S. and Google Workspace (G Suite by October 2020) customers in Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the contiguous United States. The service is configured and maintained by users in a web-based application, similar in style to Google's email service Gmail, or Android and iOS applications on smartphones or tablets. It is used for call forwarding and voicemail services, voice and text messaging, as well as U.S. and Canadian domestic and international calls. Incoming calls are forwarded to one or more telephone numbers that users must configure and verify in the account. Users can answer and receive calls on any of the telephones or applications configured to ring. While answering a call, the user can switch between the configured devices. Subscribers in the United States can make outgoing calls to domestic and international destinations. Google Voice currently provides free PC-to-phone calling within the United States and Canada, and PC-to-PC voice and video calling worldwide between users of the Google+ Hangouts browser plugin (available for Windows, Intel-based Mac OS X, and Linux). Almost all domestic and outbound calls to the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii) and Canada are currently free from the U.S. and Canada, and $0.01 per minute from everywhere else. International calls are billed according to a schedule posted on the Google Voice website. Many other Google Voice services—such as voicemail, free text messaging, call history, call screening, blocking of unwanted calls, and voice transcription to text of voicemail messages—are also available to U.S. residents. Voicemails, missed call notifications, and/or text messages can optionally be forwarded to an email account of the user's choice. Additionally, text messages can be sent and received via the familiar email or IM interface by reading and writing text messages in numbers in Google Talk respectively (PC-to-Phone texting).
Overview
Google provides free PC-to-PC voice calling worldwide. As described above, Google Voice users in many countries may make low-cost calls to international telephone numbers, and currently may also make free PC-to-phone calls within the United States and Canada. Vincent Paquet, a co-founder of GrandCentral who became a senior product manager at Google after the company had acquired the service in 2009, said that he expected Google Voice domestic service to remain free because the cost of operation is so low and, "We can generate enough revenue from international calling to support the service." As of 2021, the service remains free of charge. A Google Voice local telephone number for incoming calls is currently available only for users in the United States. Users may select a single U.S. telephone number from various area codes, free of charge to each account. Incoming calls to the number may ring simultaneously any of the user's configured phones or the account's Google Talk feature. Based on the calling number, or contact group (e.g., Family, Friends, Work), or on time of day (e.g., disabling a home telephone during business hours and routing calls to mobile or business number), individual numbers may be configured to ring. Multiple destinations may be specified that ring simultaneously for incoming calls. Service setup/initiation requires a non-VOIP USA telephone number for verification and identification purposes. Calls may be initiated from any of the configured telephones, as well as from a mobile device app, or from the account portal. As of August 2011, users in many other countries also may place outbound calls from the web-based application to domestic and international telephone numbers. The service also features voicemail with indexable automated voicemail transcription, accessible via a web browser, e-mail, or by phone. Google Voice provides automatic blocking of known numbers, e.g., telemarketers, the ability to switch lines in mid-call, differentiated voice mail greetings based on caller, and call recording. In 2021, Google discontinued Short Message Service (SMS) forwarding. Previously, customers of Gizmo5, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) service vendor acquired by Google, were allowed to forward calls to their Gizmo service which may be answered using a free computer application, or a web application, or SIP-based telephone hardware. Google discontinued Gizmo5 service on April 3, 2011. Several competing virtual number services, such as eVoice. Personal numbering services have been available in the United Kingdom since 1993, similar to the AT&T True Connections 500 service offered in the 1990s in the United States. AT&T's service required the direct involvement of AT&T to change the telephone number list, while the Google service is user-configurable on the web application. The original voice of GrandCentral and Google Voice belonged to actress and voice-over artist Laurie Burke, but has been replaced with recordings by Kiki Baessell, a Googler who had no experience in professional voice-overs, but was chosen because of her pleasant, familiar voice. As of late 2009, Google Voice had approximately 1.4 million users, of which 570,000 used the service 7 days a week. This number rose markedly after Google transitioned Google Voice from being "invitation only" to being available to all Gmail subscribers in the United States.
History
Origin GrandCentral, founded in 2005 by Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet with funding by Minor Ventures, was acquired by Google on July 2, 2007, for US$95 million in a transaction led by Wesley Chan. Although GrandCentral users were able to continue to use the service after the purchase, new users were not accepted, and Google made no public statements about their plans for the service. On March 11, 2009, the management of the service revealed that the team had been working on it throughout that period, apparently in secret, and that it was being rebranded "Google Voice". It was to keep most of the functionality originally offered in GrandCentral and add new features. Google hired a telecom design consultant, Peter Bouchard; he was brought on to make modifications and help relaunch the service. The service was launched by Google on March 11, 2009. A Wired blog post quoted a figure of 3.5 million users in 2013.
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