I stumbled upon a new service from the end-all-be-all Google that may be the next step in the evolution of mobile communication.

Effectively, Google Voice merges traditional cell phone and land line service in to voice over IP (VOIP) data streams, and then back into cell phone or land line technology, and it sounds pretty cool.

Once you are invited to use the service, you select a Google Voice number which could have an area code from anywhere in the United States.  You can then set up Google Voice to ring any phone you want when someone dials that number.  For instance, when you dial my Google Voice phone number, I can set the program up to ring my cell phone, office phone or home phone… but what’s really cool is that I can set it up to ring all three at the same time.

So I could be at the office and leave the cell phone at home and you’d still be able to reach me.

Some other impressive features are the transcribed voice mail (Google Voice will email you a transcript of the voice mail), the ability to play voice mail back through a web interface, and you can even screen or block calls.  Google will mark annoying telemarketers as Spam, much like they handle spam in Gmail.

The service is still in its infancy, and you still have to be invited, much like Gmail originally.  However, I suspect that Google Voice will morph into a service that will compete with Skype and give your cell phone company a run for its money.  What’s neat about Google Voice is that you only need an Internet connection to use it, meaning you’d only need a data plan on your smart phone, and not necessarily a voice plan…

If you’ve got experience using Google Voice, I’d love to hear about it.

More information here.

Technology cell phone, Google Voice, Technology