Google Voice "Lite" Gives You All the Great Features Without a New Number

Posted 10/27/2009 at 1:47pm | by Bart Salisbury

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No matter how innovative the big boys are, the minions lurking about in the ‘tubes’ keep on beating them to the punch on new, innovative features. In this case the big boy is Google Voice, which offers you a phone number along with a bag stuffed with nifty features like voicemail, voicemail transcription, custom greetings, free text-messaging, blocking unwanted callers, and call screening. The only drawback is you have to use Google Voice’s assigned number, which is a problem for us who have our identity intimately tied to an existing mobile number.

The hackers on the net didn’t let this slow them down, however, and a workaround came about pretty quickly. Keep your existing mobile number, just forward your unanswered calls to your Google Voice number. The process is pretty simple, in fact. You can find it explained in posts at TechnologyCrowd and Lifehacker.

Well hack no more. Google Voice has taken the hint and now offers a ‘lite’ version with this feature. According to The Official Google Blog if you sign up with your existing number you’ll get access Google Voice’s voicemail features. If you already have a Google Voice account the process of forwarding your voicemail from your mobile numbers has been simplified.

Image Credit: Google