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Google Voice

telecommunications service
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Also known as: GrandCentral
Written by
William L. Hosch
William L. Hosch was an editor at Encyclopædia Britannica.
William L. Hosch
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Article History

Google Voice, telecommunications service introduced in 2009 by the American search engine company Google.

In 2007 Google acquired GrandCentral, a start-up subscription service founded by entrepreneurs Craig Walker and Vincent Paquet. Users had a single number to give to family, friends, and business contacts. The GrandCentral system would ring all of a user’s phones at once, and the user could set rules to designate which phone would ring when specific person called. Subscribers could also call the system to check their voicemail.

In March 2009 Google relaunched GrandCentral as Google Voice, a free telecommunications service that added a texting system and the ability to make VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) calls for free between any Internet service providers (ISPs) located within the United States. Google Voice can also be used to make international calls, though the service charges international call rates per country.

In addition to challenging traditional business models for long-distance telephone service, Google Voice competed with Skype (now owned by Microsoft), another free VoIP service. However Skype customers used to need a computer or a special phone connected to a computer in order to make any calls, and only domestic calls to other Skype customers were free. As of 2024 Skype calls are generally free (even internationally), but features such as voicemail, texting, or making calls to non-Skype interfaces require the user to pay fees. Applications such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Meta’s WhatsApp have also transformed the face of telecommunications since Google Voice’s launch and have proved dominant in the marketplace. Zoom and Teams have especially become common forms of communication in corporate workplaces, while WhatsApp is typically used to keep in touch with friends and family. Although it was once convenient to have one phone number for any purpose, many people no longer have a corporate phone number, preferring instead to communicate via apps such as Teams or Zoom.

William L. Hosch