Internet giant Google has expanded its Google Voice VoIP service to all American users, with no invitation required.
The service allows users to sign up for a single phone number to control all other devices, voicemail that moves directly to email, free calls and text messages and low-price international calls. Until now, invitations were needed to sign up.
In a blog post, the company said that “after lots of testing and tweaking, we’re excited to open up Google Voice to the public, no invitation required”.
The Google Voice service caused some controversy last year after Apple banned Google’s Google Voice app from the App Store. This even sparked a report by the FCC into whether the move was anticompetitive or not.
However, despite Google rolling out the service to more users, Australians won’t be able to take part.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
