From its very beginning, the Internet has been changing the way we communicate. E-mail, instant messaging, Twitter, and Facebook have all had a profound impact on the way we communicate with each other in the 21st century. Just as e-mail has revolutionized the way we write to each other, new technologies are arising that revolutionize the way we speak to each other. VoIP is by no means a new technology, but it is one that has been gaining steam in recent years. The most recent development in the internet telephony world comes from none other than Google: enter Google Voice. Formerly GrandCentral, Google recently acquired and rebranded this internet-based service, which allows you to route all of your phone calls through a single number. In keeping with their mission to organize all of the world’s information in one place, they also provide a central place to store all of your SMS messages and voice mails
Receiving calls. During your initial setup, you first choose your Google Voice number from one of the available numbers. You can search by area code or letters or words you would like to have in your phone number. Being a programmer, I went with a number ending in CODE so that it would be easy for my friends to remember. Next, you set up your phones that you want your Google Voice number to forward to. To verify each of your numbers, Google gives it a ring and then prompts you to key in a code that is shown on your computer screen. Now all incoming calls to your Google voice number will be forwarded to the number(s) that you set up.
Placing calls. The process for receiving a call from your new number is rather straightforward, but placing a call requires a little more work. If you are using a computer or other device with an active internet connection, you can place a call using the Google Voice website. Placing a call method first calls your phone, and then connects you to the other party after you pick up. If you are using a Blackberry or Android phone, Google has a free dialer application you can use to make calls through Google Voice. If you have another phone, you might be able to make calls by using one of the third-party dialer programs that are floating around cyberspace (such as GV Mobile for the iPhone or GV Dialer for a variety of phones). If you don’t have an internet connection or a mobile phone with a dialer program available, it is still possible to place a call using your Google Voice number. You can call your Google Voice number from one of your registered phones, and use the menu system to dial a number. This is obviously not very convenient since it forces you to dial the number manually instead of selecting from a contact list.
Another obvious benefit is that you never have to change your number if you move or get a new cell phone (although if you move to another area code this may be desirable, so you can change your number at any time for a $10 fee). Since all your calls all come through one number and you can forward to whichever phone(s) you want, you also have the flexibility of picking up calls wherever you have a Google-registered phone. Along those lines (no pun intended), you can also transfer your call to another one of your registered phones in the middle of a call by simply pressing the * key.
A final benefit that I find particularly interesting is that you can, with a little bit of technical knowledge, set up your computer (or an IP phone) to place and receive calls with Google voice as well so in theory you don’t actually need a phone anymore. Google has chosen to support the free Internet calling service Gizmo5. Gizmo5 is much like Skype in that it allows you to make calls to other users of the service for free using a computer with a SIP softphone client. Just as with Skype, you have to pay a small fee to make calls to a standard telephone or to receive a number that phone users can call you from, but this all changes with Google Voice. Your new number from Google will forward to your Gizmo5 SIP address! This allows you to literally take your number anywhere in the world that you have an Internet connection! I think that you can start to see all of the possible uses of this new technology now, and I haven’t even discussed all of the features yet!
- International SMS: I have lots of friends out of the country, and one in particular that I like to text with a lot, but Google Voice only supports text messaging in the US for now. Oddly enough, I tried sending a message to one of my friends in South Korea and it reported it as being sent successfully. The message never arrived and I had to dig around the help forums for a while before I found that SMS only works in the US.
- Encryption: It is quite possible for someone to intercept packets and listen in on your conversation if it is transmitted unencrypted over the Internet. This situation can occur when using a SIP client with your Gizmo5 account to place or receive a call. I would feel much better about using Gizmo5 with Google Voice if Google would support one or more of the VoIP encryption protocols that are available. I have suggested that they use the ZRTP protocol which provides a simple mechanism for the callers to verify that the conversation is indeed encrypted and that it has not been compromised by a man-in-the-middle attack.
- Integration with Google Talk: This idea just makes sense. Google has a computer-to-computer calling system established, and now they have a good-sized Internet to telephone system. Why not merge the two together and join IM, video conferencing, and phone calling into one application. That would really be a communication revolution!
