Google Voice: Google Reserves 1 MIllion Phone Numbers

Google has reserved one million phone numbers, heating up speculation that Google Voice will be ready soon. The reserved numbers are all American phone numbers: the service will be free for use within the USA, though calling outside the country will require the purchase of credits.

Touted as the evolution of voicemail, Google Voice integrates a user's existing phone numbers into one centrally-accessible number, whose voicemail can be pushed to an email account as a transcribed audio file. Number portability is on the horizon, which would allow a user to make one phone number the default for redirected incoming calls..

I'm not affiliated with Google, but I find this stuff fascinating. I'm both amazed by the simplicty of the execution, and also wary of consolidating my online "life" with one provider. How about you? Is this a service you'd welcome?