Google Voice: Bring us your number?

Google might be making it easier to adopt Google Voice by letting users bring an existing number.

Getting started with Google Voice could be easier if you could bring an existing phone number.

(Credit: Google)

Techcrunch reports that Google plans to bring the concept of number portability to its Google Voice product, allowing you to use an existing cell phone number as your Google Voice number. At the moment, those who sign up for Google Voice are given a brand-new phone number that others can call to a reach a user at home, work, or on the mobile.

The trouble is that when you call somebody back who called your Google Voice number, the number that appears in their caller ID window is the number of the device that you're using, forcing them to store several different numbers in their phone anyway to know who's calling them and causing confusion over just which number to use. As an addition to the number portability efforts, Google is supposedly working on software that will let you broadcast your Google Voice number from your assorted handsets.

Google isn't going to be your wireless carrier just yet; you'll still have to have some sort of account with a carrier to deliver your calls, texts, and e-mails. Google Voice also lets users access voice mail transcriptions from their e-mail in-boxes and set up conference calling, among other things.

Google Voice is still in limited use; you have to have been a customer of GrandCentral, acquired by Google in 2007, to use the service. In March, Google said it would open up the service to everyone in "a number of weeks," which gives it a pretty large window.

[sxydeeny]

good that they will be allowing customers to bring over their own numbers. Once Google becomes a provider( they probably will.. then customers may still have the option to bring their number or select one from their service.

[ti99_forever]

"Google isn't going to be your wireless carrier just yet; you'll still have to have some sort of account with a carrier to deliver your calls, texts, and e-mails. Google Voice also lets users access voice mail transcriptions from their e-mail inboxes and set up conference calling, among other things."

Is this entirely true? Is there anything to stop me from putting another number on my account, other than my own?

I often use Google Voice to make long distance calls from work, just key in the phone # I wish GV to call me back on. This works with any phone.

[renGek]

I hope they plan to confirm the # you want to use is actually the number you have possession of. I would hate for someone to steal another person's number for a scam. You know people will find loop holes in anything.

[mrcockrell]

ummm... yeah thanks god you mentioned this i bet they were totally going to just give you any number you want

peoples ignorance never ceases to amaze me

[nicmart]

Ignorance can be a problem, but a much graver one is insolence. Think about it.

[mrcockrell]

@ nicmart

agreed... i will try to be better than that in the future

thanks

[illbits]

When Google announced they would open up Google Voice to everyone in a number of weeks I knew we'd be lucky to see it happen in a number of months. How many weeks does it take before you can no longer refer to the duration as "a number of weeks." Surely it would take a number of geeks to get to figure that one out. But have no fear interwebbers, there's still PLENTY of time to get to the bottom of that one!

[todd3617]

Google is slowly taking over the world. I said it several years ago when they first started adding applications. You wait and see, Google will replace the US government one day.

[ericrosoff]

You can call contacts from your cell phone and have it show up on their caller ID as your Google Voice number. When contacts text you, the text comes from a (406) xxx-xxxx number. This is the GV proxy number to their cell phone. Just save that number for your contact and call it from your cell phone (instead of their real number). Your contact will see your GV number in the caller ID.

[TV James]

If you dial GV first and then dial the number you want, you can have your GV number show up. Sadly, no way to access your contacts list via keypresses or via voice commands.

Ditto if you go through the website to select the number you want to call.

But even if you port over one number to GV, yeah, if you only use that device to make your outgoing directly dialed calls, you're fine. But if, say, you want to use your Blackberry for the call (versus your private cell phone so that your company picks up the minutes on the company-related call) then that doesn't work.

I was going to say you miss out on Call Record and Mid-Call Transfer, but apparently those features only currently work on incoming. (I could have sworn I'd used MCT before on a call I placed via GV.)

[gvdialer]

Good new everyone, there is a simple solution to showing your google number on outgoing calls. To learn all about go to http://www.gvdialer.com