[WisdomWolfX]

When you setup GV you'll pick a number. You'll have to give people number to get the most benefits from GV (Call screening, integrated texting from web interface with complete history online, etc).

However you can still get benefits from their voicemail service without changing your number. You can set your current phone to forward to GV VM instead of your carriers VM. This will allow you to get email or SMS copies of your VM in a transcribed form. This is really useful for reading your messages without having to listen to them (although the transcription is not always perfect you can usually get a good idea of what the message is about and whether it's worth listening to or not).