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Call it the "one number to rule them all" service. Google Voice, which goes live in a few weeks, is supposed to let friends, relatives, and business contacts find you whether you're at your desk, on a business trip, or vacationing in Peru. Tests carried out over the past few days suggest that, despite a few glitches, it could well live up to this promise.

Users will soon be able to register, sign up for a phone number in a local area code, and add multiple landline and cell-phone numbers to an account. When someone calls a Google Voice phone number, all the registered phones ring at the same time.

The service takes several telephony technologies--voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), voice transcription, and call routing--and connects them to the Web. Other Internet phone services let you play voice-mail messages on a computer or record calls, but Google Voice is a step towards unified communication. It's the voice equivalent of an e-mail address. Once you register a number, the idea is that you never have to worry about which phone you are using, even if you switch offices, homes, or cell phones.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/22380/?a=f