Today Google announced Google Voice, a rebranded version of GrandCentral — a service that enables users to unify multiple phone numbers in an area code of your choice. (For example, if someone calls the unified number, all your phones will ring at once.)

Voice mails were also unified in one box. Other features include the ability to decide how best to manage a call (pick up, send it to voice mail, record the call) and record individual voice mail greetings for different callers.

GrandCentral launched in 2005 and was purchased in 2007 by Google, after which time it enjoyed little mention in the press and no apparent development — until today, at which time existing GrandCentral members can upgrade to Google Voice. In a handful of weeks, it will open to the public, The New York Times reports.

All previous GrandCentral features have been retained and wedded to an online interface reminiscent of Gmail. Four features have been added:

• Free voice mail transcription, which converts recordings into typed text. Users have the option to have these messages sent to themselves as emails or texts — enabling them to search through, sort, save, copy or even forward material from voice mails.
• Free conference calling.
• Cheap international calls, with rates competitive to online telephony leader Skype: $0.02 a minute to France or China, $0.03 to Chile or the Czech Republic, for example.
• Text message organization — texts are sent to whichever mobile phones you specify, including multiple ones at once. They are also collected into your Google Voice inbox, like email, and can be filed and kept — a first in mobile phone history, the NY Times observes. As is the case with Gchat on Gmail, back-and-forth texts will be kept as "conversations."

Image credit: flickr user scriptingnews via Creative Commons. Views expressed in this article do not represent those of the photographer.