FOUR AWESOME WAYS TO SET UP "GOOGLE VOICE"
"Google Voice" is a feature-rich telephone management service. They can provide you with a free local phone number (in any area code you desire) or you can have them ring one of your existing land-line or cellular phone numbers. An excellent description of "Google Voice" can be found at
http://askbobrankin.com/what_is_google_voice.html
Google's terse description of their service is located at
The "Google Voice" service can be configured in one of four methods:
Method 1:
When people phone your "Google Voice" phone number (a new local phone number that is provided to you by "Google Voice"), their calls are forwarded to any actual, existing landline phone(s) or cellular phone(s) that you want to either answer or record messages from.
See
http://www.ehow.com/how_5320233_google-voice-account-set-up.html
and
http://smallbiztrends.com/2009/07/getting-set-up-with-google-voice.html
for details of "Method 1".
Method 2:
"Google Voice" can be used to obtain a message-only phone number which has an outgoing voice message (created by you) followed by the recording of an incoming voice message (created by the caller). In this method, you get a local phone number from "Google Voice". When a caller phones this local phone number, it does not ring any of your existing land-line or cellular phones. See
http://en.kendincos.net/video-trrrfph-how-to-use-google-voice-with-no-usa-phone-number-.html
for details of "Method 2".
Method 3:
"Google Voice" can be set up as a feature-rich voice messaging system for an existing phone line that has "call forwarding capability". In "Method 3", you use the "call forwarding" feature of your landline phone line or your cellular phone to forward phone calls to your "Google Voice" phone number.
See
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/voice/thread?tid=00a93855af6943b4&hl=en
and
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/google-voice-lite-no-new-number-required/
for details of "Method 3".
Method 4:
"Google Voice" can be set up as a feature-rich voice messaging system for an existing cellular phone line. In "Method 4", you do not get a new local phone number from "Google Voice". Instead you "attach" it to your existing cellular phone. At the present time, "Method 4" is only available with AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon mobile phone numbers.
See
http://www.google.com/support/voice/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=22635&topic=22639
for details of "Method 4".