Menlo Park (ip-192.com): Google plans to put students on the fast track: Everybody with an .edu email address can now sign up for Google Voice. Google promises to send out priority invitations within 24 hours.
Google Voice was launched on March 11, 2009. Users must have an established U.S. based phone service to activate Google Voice, which allows users to forward incoming calls to a single or multiple phone numbers. Customers can use additional free features such as voicemail, call history, conference calling, call screening, blocking of unwanted calls, and voice transcription. Voice mails can be forwarded to an e-mail address.
Inbound and outbound calls to U.S. and Canada made through the service are free of charge, and international phone calls can be made at low rates starting at 2 cents per minute. Greetings can be personalized, based on the number calling, and conference calls can be initiated.
Additionally, customers of Gizmo5, can forward calls to their Gizmo service which may be answered using a free computer or a web application. Calls can also be routed to any GoogleTalk, Skype or many other Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) service.
"We've found that Google Voice can be useful in many different ways to many different people'" says Jason Toff in the Google Voice Blog. "But one group of people that it's especially well-suited for is students. We've heard college students in particular really appreciate getting their voicemail sent to their email, sending free text messages and reading voicemail transcriptions rather than listening to messages."
Since its initial lunch, more than 1.4 million users have signed up for the service.
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