Although it certainly isn’t a secret and was fairly widely publicized when launched in September, I’m surprised at the number of people who don’t know that Google offers free phone service in the U.S. One that can easily replace your current landline with no extra equipment other than what you already have (although if you don’t have a microphone, you’ll need one), and no contracts or monthly bills. (They also offer very competitive rates for international long-distance calls.)
All it takes is a free Gmail account, activating the Google Voice Plug-in (again, free), and you’re set. Setting all this up takes only 10 or 15 minutes, and it isn’t very complicated at all.
You can use the phone option in Gmail without getting a Voice account – when you’re at Gmail, look at the right side, under the “Chat” section, and you should see an option called “Call phone” – but you’re limited to outbound calls only since without a Voice number a generic phone number is used. But even that’s a pretty viable option, since you can make local and domestic long-distance calls for free. But the really “good stuff” happens when you have a Voice account.
What you’ll do in Google Voice is select a new phone number, which is automatically linked to your Gmail account. I know – changing numbers can be a pain, but the benefits are pretty significant.
You can set up that one number to ring any or all of your other phones when you get a call. You can even have it send certain callers to your cell phone, a landline, or a work phone. You get a very nice voice mail system that not only stores audio, but can do transcriptions of your voice mail as well (these can often be amusing!). Plus you get the “old-time” option of call-screening as some leaves a message and deciding whether you want to answer the call or not. Someone bugging you and you’d rather not take their calls? Configure it so they get sent automatically to voice mail or get blocked all together. Need to make conference calls? Google Voice makes it a snap. Other options include sending and receiving text messages (and having incoming messages sent to your Gmail account as well), personalized greetings, call waiting, and call recording. And there are add-ins for Firefox and extensions for Chrome that let you make calls right from your browser – even dialing numbers that appear at Web sites if you’d like.
When I moved in June I decided I didn’t need a landline. Since I use a no-contract pay-by-the-minute cell phone (it does phone calls and text, but little else; but it only costs me $80 a year), that wasn’t going to work as my primary phone. I used Skype for a couple of months – it only cost about $10 a month for virtually unlimited calling (well, okay, it was limited to 10,000 minutes), but I was never happy with the quality or having to load up their software just to use it. About a week after I started using Google Voice I bid Skype adieu. The quality of calls is excellent, and the dropped calls that plagued Skype (they always seemed to happen about 20 minutes into a call…) are virtually non-existent with Google Voice.
As with all free things, there are some downsides. Number one is that you don’t get any 911 emergency service. Second, your service will be interrupted if your power goes out or your computer is off or otherwise not functioning. Obviously, if Google was to go offline, you wouldn’t be able to make or receive any phone calls, either, but the other two are much more likely to happen. Having a cell phone, as most people do, takes care of these emergency or no-service issues in a pinch. And lastly, you’ll need to stay logged in to your Gmail account to receive calls; otherwise they go to voice mail.
It’s worth trying out – doesn’t cost anything except a little time, and it may be a worth-while way to chuck that monthly landline bill.
