This morning, Google announced that its Google Voice service is now available to anyone in the United States. Google Voice is Google’s free telephone service offering a wide range of calling and voicemail services. Its best-known feature is probably the ability to simultaneously forward incoming calls to multiple phone numbers, like a switchboard. You can configure your Google Voice number to ring your home phone, office phone and mobile phone all at the same time. This way, wherever you are, you can get the call, or you can choose to let it go to voice mail.

Google Voice also gives you an easy way to conduct conference calls. You simply have the participating individuals call your Google Voice number at the prescribed time and then use the service’s call waiting feature to add each caller to the conference. The service was born with Google’s 2007 acquisition of telephone management startup GrandCentral. It was relaunched as Google Voice in March 2009. A full list of Google Voice features can be found at http://linkon.in/dsIwgh.

Additionally, according to a Twitter post by Dave Girouard, Google's Vice President of Enterprise Sales, Google Voice will also soon be integrated into Google Apps.

Previously, Google Voice was available to non-education users only by invitation. (We know of one attorney so keen to use the tools available in Google Voice that she purchased an invitation for $18.00 on e-Bay. She thought it was well worth the price.)

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