A while ago Google bought a small little phone tech company called Grand Central.. it was really quite for over a year about the plans for this company and it's phone service.

The news is now out. The new service is called Google Voice and it will shake up the status quo.

What is Google Voice / Grand Central?

This is from their web site

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What is GrandCentral?
Get all the same calls, but in a whole new way.

GrandCentral doesn't replace your phones; we just link them together and help them do more. How do we do that? We give people One Number…for Life – a number that's not tied to a phone or a location – but tied to you.

With GrandCentral, you can be reached with a single number, answer a call at any phone you want, seamlessly switch phones in the middle of a call, and even know whether a call is important before you take it.

What else can I do with GrandCentral?
We're not your typical phone company. And these aren't your typical features.

    * Check your messages by phone, email, or online
    * Keep all your messages online for eternity
    * Record and store your phone calls (just like voicemail)
    * Quickly (and secretly) block an annoying caller
    * Click-to-dial from your address book
    * Surprise your callers with a custom voicemail greeting
    * Forward, download, and add notes to your messages

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I have several Google Voice numbers – I can point them to any phone I want to use. The caller only sees my GV number. I can also call from any  phone. The person I am calling see my GV number on caller ID.

The service is free…but they have not given out new number for over a year.

That will change within a few weeks. Google will start giving out numbers to new subscribers.    Go to Google now and get on the list for a number when they open it up again. 

I will bet that the availability does not last long.

Go to this page and sign up for a number.

https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/

Read original blog post

Just an update….   Google Voice is still rocking… if you do not want to buy a burner phone but still want to keep your real cell phone number private Google Voice is the way to go..  you can turn it on and off with a few clicks, you can text from your gmail log in… to get one just create a gmail account, and go to http://voice.google.com and request a GV number..   you can even pick the area code.