According to Network World, the service previously known as GrandCentral is about to sprout wings, with reportedly 1 million numbers being reserved for use by the recently minted GoogleVoice platform.
The timing could be welcome news for many CallVantage customers of AT&T as they’re all going to be losing their service, which has as one of its core features, Find Me/Follow Me that allows single number calling with multiple phone numbers as destinations and a wonderful, and perhaps even fuller featured Do Not Disturb mode, that makes even Google Voice binary style (on or off) Do Not Disturb setting seem antiquated. With CallVantage you can schedule a recurring Do Not Disturb time (like when you’re sleeping) and have only emergency calls “barge through.” With the free Google Voice service you can simply set it, and turn DND off, manually, and not have any recurring settings.
Still, as a user (and former agency and investor) GoogleVoice is my call management app of choice. Beyond the no cost feature, as someone who is on the road and always changing devices and phone numbers, the application has made it simple for family and friends to not have to wonder, “what phone is he using today and what number reaches him.”
With the reported Local Number Portability feature also being added, with Google Voice, the Big G may have found their first “sticky” service for voice they have been looking for that has the same magic as Picasa with photos.