Gadgets

Google wants to be your phone provider. And to get your business, it has a very enticing offer.

Not only will its new Google Voice service give you free phone calls within the continental U.S., it also assigns you a new phone number that forwards calls to your cell phone and land line. And it transcribes your voice messages into e-mail.

To do all that, you must sign up for a new Google phone number to tie in your other connections.

“We’ve all got a zillion different phone numbers. This greatly simplifies dealing with all those numbers, and consolidates them into one place,” said Tom Austin, an analyst for researcher Gartner.

Google Voice will be available to the public within a few weeks, said Vincent Paquet, a Google senior product manager.

Digitizing your voice mail means those messages can be posted on blogs or shared via e-mail.

Google Voice will compete with Internet phone providers such as eBay’s Skype and Vonage, which lets subscribers make Internet phone calls from their land lines.

How it works: Sign in to voice.google.com, choose a new phone number in your local area code, and assign your various phone numbers to it.

Hand out the new number to friends. When they call you, all your phones will ring – land line, cell phone, etc. If you don’t pick up, and it goes to voice mail, the messages are transcribed for free. They instantly show up in your Gmail e-mail box, as well on a voice.google.com page.

The free phone calls are placed from the voice.google.com site, where you type in the number, and choose which one you want to make the call from – cell or land line.

Once the call is placed, your phone rings, and the call begins. The same process is used for international calls – but for those, you need to buy at least $10 worth of phone credits.

Google hopes to make money by selling low-cost international calls. Rates begin at 2 cents a minute for land-line calls to countries such as Germany and Spain, but go up to 18 cents a minute for mobile calls.

Google also offers free conference calling. You start the call by phoning another person, and up to five other callers can phone in while you’re on the line.

Associated Press