When I first signed up for GrandCentral a few years ago, I lived in a different city. As such, I had a different area code. And that was fine until I moved and Google, which bought GrandCentral in 2007 and subsequently put it on lockdown, prohibited me from changing it. I didn’t think much of it until my GrandCentral account magically transformed into a Google Voice account a few months ago, taking a good service and making it excellent. Unfortunately, I was still stuck with my old number. But now, there’s an option to change it.
The “Change your number” functionality, as spotted today by Boy Genius Report, is great news for users like me. Unfortunately, it will cost you to change it. There’s a one-time $10 fee, which in my mind is well worth it. Best of all, Google Voice will activate your new number right away and still keep your old one active and forwarding to the new one for three months.
What’s also nice is that in picking your new number, you can search by area code and by a word that you want your number to contain. So for example if I search for area code 408 and the word “tuna,” I can get a 408 number that ends in 8862 (”T-U-N-A” on a keypad).
Here are the details:
There is a $10 one-time fee to change your Google Voice number. Here is how it works:
- Pick a new number in the area codes we have.
- Pay $10 with Google Checkout, using your credit card.
- Your new number becomes active right away.
- Calls to your old number will keep coming to your Google Voice account for three months, so you have time to tell everyone about your new number.
We’re still waiting on number portability (the ability to use your existing numbers as Google Voice numbers), but this is a nice start.
this seems like a pointless feature, considering when the thing goes live, you’ll just be able to register a new account with a new number.
this could have worked if they charged $10/mo, and for that you’d get to keep the old #, and have it forward to your existing account
yeah but you would lose all your data, with this, you won’t.
Good thing I don’t have very much GV data. Although I’ve been a member since 2007, nobody ever calls my number. I’m lonely
Although it’ll be inconvenient since I use one Google account for nearly all their services.
Agreed, it’d be great if you could keep your old number and just continue to have it forward to your new one OR just have multiple phone numbers. I’d pay for that.
This would rock if I had a Google voice account. I never picked up GrandCentral back in the day and now I’m paying the price.
I’d really love to try it.
I had to wait a year to get mine!
I just got mine today. With couple of minutes of using/testing it, I just have one word “Awesome”.
I agree. It’s great they are rolling out new features, but it would be nice if they finished sending out invites so we could register.
They need to go ahead an marry this thing with GoogleTalk. That’s the shoe everyone is waiting for and they know it.
Including people on Macs?
looks like GOOG is making some great progress in their voice offering.
Really interested in using this service for my business. Thanks for turning me on to it.
Why does it matter what your area code is? Can’t get a date if you don’t live in a fashionable area code, like Elaine on Seinfeld.
Well, for one thing, I can’t get my door buzzer to link up with my phone unless it’s the right area code.
Yep. That happened to me in Atlanta last year.
You saying that your iPhone doesn’t have an App for opening your door?
it should, but then i’d probably lose it.
As tempting as a DID swap might be, I’m going to wait for RespOrg since I already have a vanity TF number. I might scavenge a DID off my Asterisk box if porting is completed. I like those numbers and they came from Level 3 resellers already.
I love that you can search for cool phone numbers by alphabetic string, e.g.
(650) 450-TECH
(585) GOO-GLE1
(503) 4CR-UNCH
(724) 252-SEXY
(469) 2LO-VEME
and so on.
It reminded me of the Toll-Free Number Look-Up Tool that most carriers offer. It’s little things like that which tell me someone inside that team went the extra mile…. now if they could just let you parse out NPA and NXX -and- XXXX that would be really cool…. but with a limited DID set you’d get a lot of empty result sets…
Solution: get more DIDs
How can I get an account?
Has anybody figured out how much Google needs in revenues from this service in order to fund the costs? I figure that at $40 per account per year for the phone termination fees, it adds up very quickly. If they are reasonably successful in attracting users and get 10 million registered accounts, that totals $400 million in just call termination expenses per year. And then on top of that, there are all the other operating costs as well.
MG, why do you want to change your number? Isn’t the advantage of Grandcentral/GV to have one number for life so that you don’t have to inform family/friend of your new number every time you move?
Phil- Agreed. I thought the point of GC/GV was “One number for life”. I inferred that as meaning you can move around without having to get a new number for each new area code you enter.
Considering:
- I only have my cellphone and a work phone number, and don’t really have need for both to ring at once…
-The most interesting other feature being free voicemail transcription, which is available via other third party voicemail providers that I can use with my current phone number (don’t have to have people call the GV number instead)
Not utilizing the “one number for life” concept, and actually switching your number when you change area codes, seems to remove any incentive to use GV. Am I missing something, or am I just the wrong audience?
Seems like it would make more sense for Google Voice to offer users the ability to have multiple numbers in different area codes. Instead of switching, you’d just add.
I think that the ability to record calls is something that I don’t currently have that could be interesting. Additionally, free long distance calls is something which does Skype one better. Both of those features keep me interested in the product.
Looks really cool, but apparently I’m not cool enough to get my invite yet! Come on G!
Just imagine when the open this sucker up, I can have my many google accounts have google voice numbers and they will all filter through to one master number then I can have a nuber for New York, Chicago, Miami, and Parma!
alls i know is i’m happy with my new number
(xxx) i report.
can’t wait to build a resume and add that sucker on there (i’m a broadcast journalism major)
Rip-off when you consider the fact that grandcentral let me change my number for free. There’s no doubt that after the acquisition, Google has rolled out features that smell of awesomeness, but still, why charge?
I just received my invite to Voice last night and I love it! It’s fantastic. We’re also using it as a way for customers to call us through the “badge” on our website (not http://bloomapps.com, but rather my other web design company). Way cool.
I want an API to do things with it, even though I don’t know what those things would be!
Chris from Bloom Apps
This is very cool.
I had the same situation as the author where I signed up for one to use with work to try out. Then I moved (same job) to a different area and I would like to use GV for my personal line. But I want a different area code and I don’t want to have to assign it to a different gmail address.
I would love to be able to have two separate GV numbers. One for work and one for home. I know that defeats part of the purpose of this system, but it also would still make things a lot easier to separate out and you wouldn’t have to have every single person who may randomly call you entered into your contacts list.
I’m actually not seeing this feature yet and I’ve been a user for awhile. I checked the help files and got this message: “It isn’t currently possible to change your GrandCentral number once you’ve selected it.”
Seems like some users are getting this service, some arent?
Cool !
I like the idea going to have 2 GV numbers that I could use for many purposes.
This is great, I’m moving to philly at the end of the month, don’t want to change my cell phone number but I want to have a local number! And, a phone number ending in F&$# is available! Yeah, I’m immature, so sue me.
I hope they could come up to let us have or rent multiple numbers to use with different businesses we have. 1-800 numbers maybe for each of them.
This is a great feature and well worth the $10. Although I think area codes will soon be a thing of the past in terms of long distance charges, It’s good to know that you can keep a local number with Google Voice regardless of where you move to.
I have been trying to get a Google Voice account for awhile now with no success at all.
a little expensive i thought ..!!
This guy is going to need to change his number VERY soon…!
http://googlevo...e.blogspot.com/