First impression after upgrading my grandcentral account to google voice
I had GrandCentral account for quite a long time, but it is not so useful to me since I am living outside US. So when I received notification asking me to upgrade my GrandCentral account to Google Voice, I didn’t take action immediately.
However, I am looking for VoIP solutions for Android phones like HTC G1, Magic and Hero recently. As the VoIP solution from Google, I expected Google Voice could be integrated into Android phones very well. So I upgraded my GrandCentral account to Google Voice to find out what is new since I haven’t used it for more than one year.
The first thing I found that Google Voice still hasn’t provide a software client yet, neither on PC nor on mobile phones. This is really a pity to people who want to make VoIP calls over data connections (2G/3G or WiFi). Users can only make VoIP calls via Google Voice by callback or call in (access number) mode, both have already been used by many VoIP service provides, including Jajah, Betamax and so on, for very long time. And Google Voice also just support customers in US, which means users must have a US phone number to start a Google Voice call. If users outside US also want to use the Google Voice service, they must get a virtual US phone number links to soft/SIP phone. Now users can use Google Voice to call phone numbers outside US and the rate is not very competitive comparing with Skype, Betamax and other VoIP companies. Calling continental US remains free, which is one of the advantage of Google Voice.
The second thing I found is that integration of the Google Voice with Other Google Products, especially Gmail is not as good as I expected. The UI of Google Voice is quite the same as Gmail, but they are separated. For example, you have to forword the voice message you received via Google Voice to your Gmail address by yourself. And for SMS, there is even no option to forword them to Gmail account. As comparison, I thought the integration between Gmail and Gtalk are much better. Despite the integration issue, which should be improved in the further, I think Google Voice provides a very powerful way to manager voice messages. If I understand correctly, the transcript feature can convert voice messages to text, which is easy to search and track.
The SMS is another interesting new feature of Google Voice to me. It is can be used to send and receive SMS to and from another US number for free. This is very useful when there are some services require verification via SMS. However, though some users claim that the SMS feature of Google Voice works with certain international mobile operators, according to the offical FAQ from Google, Google Voice cannot send or receive international SMS. At least it is the case for the mobile operator I am using.
In general, though Google Voice is not as useful to users outside US as to users in US, it provides some interesting features that differ it with other VoIP service providers and the future development of Google Voice looks promising.
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