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GrandCentral Reborn As Google Voice

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the probably-should-try-that-out-again dept.

Some anonymous person wrote in to say that Google has relaunched and rebranded GrandCentral as "Google Voice." The article says it will "revolutionize telephones. It unifies your phone numbers, transcribes your voice mail, blocks telemarketers and elevates text messages to first-class communication citizens." Sadly, the voicemail didn't integrate very nicely w/ my phone back in the day, so I guess I should give it a shot.

3 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Can't wait by oodaloop · · Score: 5, Informative

    I signed up to be notified when it's available to new users.

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

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  2. Free features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Last I heard all their features were free, but I kinda felt bad because I knew the ones I liked could disappear at any time because that was what they said the plan was after they left beta.
    All features would be free during the beta, and then they said the "core" ones would be free after that with the rest being paid.

  3. Re:Wish they would use ANI instead of CID by lefiz · · Score: 5, Informative
    I'm not quite sure why this is modded as funny, since CallerID and ANI ("Automatic Number Identification") are actually two separate elements of a call as noted above. ANI is a built in signaling component of SS7 that generally cannot be modified by the calling party. See definition here.

    Still, although ANI may not be "spoofable," it can be manipulated or uninformative. For example, any call placed from any phone in my office carries a general company ANI even though the call could be originated from any of hundreds of phone numbers owned by the firm. We also have off-premise extensions (OPXs) that connect to the office PBX via SIP. Calls placed from those OPXs have the same ANI as calls made from the physical office, which would be deleterious if a call was placed to 911 from one of these phone. (We have implemented a safety workaround for this, but the point still stands.)