Google has announced a new service called Voice, which is supposedly a break through because you can give people one number and calls can then be routed wherever you like--home phone, cell phone, office phone, etc. It's a wonderful idea that VoIP telephone providers have been offering for years. Design Nine has used this kind of phone system for more than three years.
Google's promotion of this kind of service will help get more people interested in VoIP, but most people won't take advantage of it until they get better broadband connections that allow true open access networks with a variety of service providers. You can do most of the things Google Voice offers today with Internet-based companies like Vonage, but the quality of the calls varies widely with the time of day and your Internet access provider. The DSL and cable modem Internet providers hate independent phone service providers like Vonage because they siphon customers away from their own voice services. In a well-provisioned open access, service-oriented network, customers would have a choice of VoIP providers and most of them would have excellent voice quality because the network is designed specifically to support multiple providers at high standards of service quality.