Google Voice has been a popular service for quite some time as it makes screening calls and managing multiple phones a breeze, however one solid drawback was that people could not port their existing phone numbers over, meaning that if you want to enjoy all the amazing benefits that Google Voice offers you have to get a new phone number, but now that is changing as Google has discreetly enabled mobile number porting for Google Voice. More on that after the break.
Google has said that this is currently just a test available to some users and is not rolling out to everyone yet, but it can be said for sure that a full scale launch is not that far off.
Google’s statement:
We’re continually testing new features to enhance the user experience. For a limited amount of time, we’re making the Google Voice number porting process available to users. We don’t have any additional details to share at this time, but plan to offer this feature to all users in the near future
The number porting option has popped up in some users Google Voice accounts and the procedure seems to be quite simple. Just put in your cell phone number, accept some rather strongly worded warnings, and for a fee of $20, bam! You have your existing number ported to Google Voice. See screenshots of the process below.
TechCrunch explains the warnings:
Oh, about those warnings. Transferring your number to Google Voice isn’t exactly painless — depending on your current carrier agreement you may have to deal with some steep early termination fees (ETFs) that can run hundreds of dollars. That means you should think twice about doing this (as the warnings make clear).
Allowing users to port their existing numbers on Google Voice may prove to be a game changer for the service considering the fact that it is heavily integrated with the Android platform as well. Let us see when Google steps forward with a full scale launch.
Via TechCrunch