[banden]

Dprynce,

Basically google voice is a service that has a phone number. The service is external and hosted by google. The idea is you use this as your new primary phone number.

When someone calls my number, my home phone and cell phone ring at the same time. If the person calling is someone in my work group list I've specified the call will ring at my office line too. Also, text messages sent to me at this number are converted to email and sent to my gmail account.

The android app integrates with the phone software in the Droid so that when I dial out, it actually sends a request to google voice to mediate the call. On the back end side, google voice calls the number I specified and also calls my phone... but from the phone it behaves just like an outgoing call.

Because of this I can make international long distance calls at google voice pricing instead of Verizons... most notably for me is the free calling to canada (as I'm a canadian citizen/us resident and have alot of friends and family up in canada.) Also my texts go out through data where google voice converts it to text from that side.

Voice mail is worlds ahead too because it converts messages to text that can be reviewed from anywhere with phone or internet access as well as being a unified messaging service for home and cell.

SO, by having Google voice you no longer need to pay for texting, visual voicemail, long distance and to top it all off, you gain the convenience of a unified phone number and state of the art messaging system.

For me having Google Voice saves me about 30-35 dollars a month and it's pretty cool to boot.