© p_c_w

This week, Network World's John Fontana broke the news that Google has reserved 1 million phone numbers with Level 3 in anticipation of the upcoming launch of Google Voice.

"Sources could not say when the 1 million numbers may be assigned," Fontana notes. "Level 3 has been supplying Google with phone numbers since the introduction of Google Voice, so the 1 million numbers are an indication Google is close to adding a significant amount of users... Google Voice has a number of unique features including call transfer between a user's devices, multi-party conferencing, conversion of voice calls to text messages, cut-rate international calling, and call transcription."

"The primary sell with Google Voice allows a user to have one phone number people can dial to reach them regardless of where they are located, whether at home or mobile," notes Voxilla's Lonnie Lazar. "Google Voice uses VoIP to link users' collections of phone numbers. Other recent reports have indicated Google might be enabling number portability, which would allow users to keep an existing phone number as their Google Voice number."