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Google Voice Opens To All
An anonymous reader writes "Google Voice is now open to anyone in the US, removing the need to search for an invite. At the Google Voice site, anyone with a US IP address and a US phone number can sign up for an account. Non-US IPs are blocked, and non-US-based phone numbers are prevented from attaching to Google Voice (with the single odd exception of the 403 area code of southern Alberta)." Good timing on the part of Frontier Communications Corp., which just filed a lawsuit claiming that the Google Voice feature connecting a user's home, work, and cell phone numbers to another number infringes one of their patents.
Gotta be able to make those 420 calls!
since when US=ALL?
Here I thought the word "all" was defined as everyone, and not 4.5% of the world's population.
Worth it just for the shortened answering machine message. Say sayonara to the Long Winded Lady.
Google Voice has one critical flaw, and that is it has an inherent "processing delay" that it introduces into the voice path.
The delay is slightly longer than the delay most cell phones have talking to another cell phone. When you add the Google Voice delay in, it's almost an unbearable 1/3 to 1/2 a second.
I've used it from my land line calling calling out because of the free calling feature, and for that the delay is tolerable. But I can't justify having it forward to my cell phone because if anyone calls me from a cell phone, the combined lag makes the conversations really hard to have.
I am still waiting for google finger, google ear, and google sight to go with google voice.
Because the notion of call forwarding is novel and has never been thought of/implemented before...
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Also, why do some subdomains not have the AJAX-style interface today?
The government can't save you.
I've noticed many issues lately too with ./ Clicking on a message is now a new page instead of just expanding the message. Replying to a message is it's own page as well (with the basic Quote button gone). Looked like they've tried to do an overhaul of the current system (while live too) into a nightmare. An overhaul should be for improvements and a step forward, not backwards like this mess has been.
I want VoIP! Give it to me Google!
interactive hologram, or it didn't happen.
I have the impression its impossible to do anything in this country without infringing on some patent somewhere.
Your privacy, that is.
Grandcentral had consensus-based call filtering; numbers flagged by enough people as undesirable got added to a blacklist anyone could subscribe to and Google took it out, which is a shame. Google voice still has trouble turning off some call presentation features - for instance pressing "4" to toggle call recording. Every time you receive a call from an automated system that requires a 4 as input GV just eats the digit. They also removed SIP call handling for anyone but Gizmo 5, another damn shame. Having said that, it is free except for international calls and those are pretty cheap.
On the upside they already handle texting, making those $20/mo unlimited texting plans redundant. Now we just need EU-like cell plans where "caller pays" and we'd be all set - you can complete google voice calls as inbound to yourself via the mobile and full web pages. Oddly the Android client doesn't offer this feature.
What is the fucking point?!?!?!?!?
...in the USA.
Call me when it's available in Canada :-)
crazy dynamite monkey
the patent in question was http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7742468.html
which unless I'm HIGHLY mistaken was filed on 09/01/2009, well AFTER google voice was developed and released into beta. PRIOR ART MUCH?
I've been using Google Voice as an SMS-email relay to remotely control appliances. Glad more people will have the option of doing the same!
I keep telling this to everyone.
Just because something is free doesn't mean it is acceptable. Do like the military
does on such non-secure mediums of communication: speak in codes that don't reveal
any geography and trade-secrets.
Eventually someone will properly implement strong encryption for voice data like how
is done by data with SSL and such, but the cause of Intelligence is to make this medium
available when you are expecting to be able to break encryptions. Civilian computing
technology has always physically been thousands of times lower than military computing. A HAM Radio friend of mine years ago disclosed a phase of cold-fusion power that military administrators could use through any computer equipment that would remove all the in-efficiencies of wasted heat energy so that they could re-clock computers much higher than the civilians ever would on their out-of-phase power input; the result at the time I heard this was a Pentium 150MHz computer could compute well above the equivalent of today's 3000MHz multi-core computers and DSPs.
With how the computers today are performing, civilian computers are geezers on crutches walking slow for the military industrial complex computers to process and break.
The more you know.
Well, i have it now but if i so much as sneeze on my plan it will dissimilar in to the AT&T ether.. If you have to pay for data use, *and* cell minutes, what the point of voip other then security?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
".....single odd exception of the 403 area code of southern Alberta."
Add 808 to that exception...
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I figured it was because 403 is forbidden...
It re-implements itself in every culture, to assimilate you from causing harm to others. Google is an Intelligence-collection effort: what was not allowed to be done by Government is being implemented at a private company not under control of Government.
It's the same way how courts are bending to Chinese that purchased US mortgages around Colorado. You must ask yourself why the paper money is being allowed to end-up in a foreigner's hands to convey property rights in America? Why isn't the law being enforced to jail whoever traded with that foreigner? Why is an American in free labor trading with a foreign government that forces people to work at slave labor and then hornswaggle all markets with slave-made goods that none can compete to?
Google is exactly that. The founders of Google are all former CIA employees, and what's worse is they are all Jewish. That should make you wonder because it's been jews their selves that are kicked-out of 4/5 countries in the world for heinous fiscal-crimes: the old-age wives-tale that a jew is "good with money" is a hoax; jews are slave-traders, and you have them running Google to expand to all kinds of free services.
I love Google Voice. I use it for my company.
Two tips:
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
according to http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html there is a App for the iPhone. I can not find one in the App Store, is there any other app other than http://m.google.com/voice for the iPhone?
AT&T introduced a follow-me service that (top of my head) covered most or all of the patent claims in 1996, probably at least as much as Grand Central does.
Pure conjecture, but perhaps that has something to do with Shaw, a rather good national ISP whose main base is there. (Main technical base anyway. Hard to say what they consider 'head office' these days.)
No, not "dissimilar", should have been "disappear"
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I think Frontier forgot to mention Call Forwarding in their patent application. The fact that call forwarding has been around for over 30 years within the communications industry seems to make me again wonder what the patent office is for, definitely not for reviewing patent applications thats for sure. I remember conjoining my mobile. home number and work number on a NEC pabx way back in the late 80's ffs, yes that is what call forwarding is.
Google Voice still needs work. They seem to have a terrible time getting some cell phone operators to recognize Google Voice numbers, and there are constant complaints about SMS messages not getting through to some numbers. Part of the problem is that Google isn't a real telco, and they don't participate as a carrier in the North American Numbering Plan. They rent their blocks of numbers from third party small carriers, which sort of works most of the time.
I'm glad that I am not the only one -- I, too, am having the same described problem as stated above, but only on my main workstation, which its browser version is 3.5.9 whereas version 3.6.3 of Firefox on my other station does not have these issues! Although, even on the newer version of Firefox, I am click
Damn rendering issues ...
...Australians
42 hidden comments
how is this different to using gtalk with a microphone? I've been using it on my n900 to make voice calls to my brother's n900 for a while now... or does google voice allow you to dial a traditional phone number?
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
http://blog.ryankearney.com/2010/04/why-apple-approved-opera-and-not-google-voice
I've been using Google Voice (previously Grand Central) for years. It's been great to have a stable phone number - home phone or cell phone numbers may change but just tweak the configuration and your Google Voice number is still good. It's worth much more than the price (free) for just this. But there's more!
When AT&T couldn't figure out how to sign me up for home phone service I started looking into VOIP service - I wanted something with a normal looking and acting telephone that didn't require a computer to work. Gizmo5 provided the answer; they provide standard SIP service which is compatible with numerous SIP phones. With Google Voice forwarding to my Gizmo5 SIP line I've got the best of both worlds - free incoming calls and 1 cent per minute for outbound calls to anywhere in the US, Canada and the European Union. I've been using this setup for over 8 months now and it works great - very good call quality and very reliable service. My total phone bill for those 8 months is just under four dollars.
Gizmo5 has been closed to new accounts for months now so those who wish to follow in these footsteps will have to wait. And I suspect there's going to be a lot of legal challenges before this is available to all; with good SIP phones (I'm using some Grandstream phones and they're OK) it's almost indistinguishable from AT&T service and many of the features you'd pay extra for from AT&T are free. This will severely impact AT&T's business - as well as the cable companies, Vonage, Magic Jack, etc. who are selling VOIP service at a big profit. The lawsuits should start flying soon and it's going to be interesting to see how those big operators state their case when everyone sees that they're selling very little more than nothing.
Google Voice and Gizmo5 together is powerful stuff and it's going to shake the telecommunications industry from top to bottom when this is available to everyone. I wonder how far away that day will be...
"Wildfire smooths the process of completing calls and helps you be more available to callers. The system does a good job of identifying callers, so you spend much less time than before tapping numbers into the dialpad or looking up information in your Filofax or PIM. For example, the informed call waiting feature asks callers to speak their name, then plays that in your ear only (regardless where you're calling from) so you can decide what to do. If you ignore the call, Wildfire takes a message. If Wildfire identifies the caller by recognizing the name, she can take further action."
On behalf of all us Canadian four-oh-three-ers. Do you think you could call a little more attention to that fortuitous glitch? Maybe Google didn't hear you.
For very limited definitions of "for all".
You mean, 403 is not forbidden?
Program Intellivision!
Nah, just end software patents and the "drug lords of intellectual property" will go away
...US phone number/IP needed. So I'm not part of the "all" subset.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
As a DSL and Phone subscriber, I now know, where all the money I send to them is going.
Right into the sewer lines.
Yeah, i know you have it in the body text - but don't lie to people in the subject - it doesn't open to ALL - it opens to americans. Humpf
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
If you see someone claim UN is "united nations" so, it is international, just ask where the HQ is located.
It pisses them off, even diplomats.
Well, let them change the domain to slashdot.us and allow only USA/Canada IPs?
Not like we (rest of the World) didn't get used to that kind of (Godwin) for a long time.
If that thing mercifully allowed to iPhone is actually Opera, what are we using as Symbian/Windows Mobile/Android users?
That is NOT Opera for iPhone, it is actually Opera "mini" for iPhone. Seeing the real Opera on iPhone requires you to have some real high level of access to Opera secure servers. That is a theory only of course, nobody knows if Opera actually coded the real Opera for iPhone and keeping it until app store fascism ends.
similar story here, on this (windows) system running upstream firefox with autoupdates (currently at 3.6.3) things are fine. On my linux box with debian provided iceweasel (not sure of the version offhand) things are broken.
I sometimes wonder if /. forget to test with slightly older versions of the browsers when they change something.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Google voice opens to all? This must be some new and previously unknown meaning of 'all' that means 'actually only the minute percentage of the world's population currently afflicted by an accidental affiliation to the United States as a consequence of some act of sexual intercourse - resulting in impregnation - of two persons of diverse gender located between Mexico and Canada... Yes that's right - about 5% of the world.... If 'all' is about 5% - then you don't need many for a ruling majority in the US do you? Oh wait....
Calgary (located in the 403) is a hot bed of communications expertise. It is quite possible there are developers working there that need to test the system hence the 403 exception. When I worked for Nortel in the '90s, there was all kinds of field trials being run out of Calgary.