Google Voice is a new phone service that permits you to make free outgoing calls and text messages to anywhere in the US or Canada. International calls can be made at rates as low as $0.02 per minute. This service is loaded with special features, including free local and long distance calls using my regular telephones.
With Google Voice, there is no software to load or hardware to purchase and no new telephone equipment is required. Voice calls are never sent through your computer so you don’t have to wear headphones. You simply use the normal telephone(s) you already have.Â
You just sign-up online with Google and select a telephone number to use. I had many local numbers to choose from and picked one that is easy to remember. Some people might prefer to select a non-local number like the West Coast.
Once your new Google account is established, you place outgoing phone calls by using a computer for just a few seconds to open a web browser, navigate to http://www.google.com/voice/, click on CALL and then specify the phone number you wish to call. You do this by simply clicking on a name or number in your personal directory or by entering the phone number manually. Google then calls your personal telephone or from whatever telephone you specify.
When you answer, Google Voice immediately calls the other telephone number you specified and connects the two lines together. When the party you are calling answers you start talking in the same manner as you would using any regular telephone. Now, the computer isn’t being used any more. In fact, you could even turn the computer off while talking. It’s that simple.
 Google Voice includes free outgoing calls, free voice mail online, and can transcribe your voicemail to text, free call forwarding, free call recording, free three-way conferencing, free call screening, free call blocking of unwanted callers, free texting, and more. For incoming calls, your single Google phone number can be set to ring any or all of your phones simultaneously on up to 5 different phone numbers (home phone, office phone, cell phone, Skype phone, and any other phones you want to specify). This would allow you to answer wherever you are in the country without the caller having to hunt you down.
 If you do not answer your phone, the call goes to voice mail and is recorded, and then a computer-generated transcription of the message, along with an MP3 recording of the same message, is sent to your email address. You can both read it and hear it when you check your e-mails.
You have an Inbox with your Google account that shows your voice mails and call history. You can add notes to the transcribed messages. You can even return calls, and text callers or send your recorded voice mail messages to others by e-mail directly from the Inbox.
With Google Voice you can select your phone number for any part of the country. So, for example, if you maintain two residences you can select a local phone number for the area where most of your friends and relatives live so they can make local calls to contact you. You would still use that same number to make free outgoing calls no matter where you are located.
This is truly an amazing free phone service. And, it is free.
From Chris Cane, SCORE member:
I have been using Google Voice as a Blackberry application for a year or more and it allows me to make calls to Europe and Israel very inexpensively from my cell phone. I used to have Verizon, and their rates to Canada were ridiculous so I even used Google Voice on my Blackberry to call Canada for free.
 Thanks to Paul Holzschuher for this material.
