Google is close to buying phone management company GrandCentral which provides one number for life which can be routed to various actual numbers.Neither company is commenting but blog speculation puts a $50m value on the deal. GrandCentral offers one central number and voicemail for a variety of phones. You can change how your phone reacts to incoming calls on different numbers, with different voicemail messages or ringtones.
With Google already encouraging people to sign up to access email and VoIP services a tie-up to mobile phones would make sense.GrandCentral launched late last year and is currently in beta, covering 47 US states.It provides a visual inbox - which shows voicemail messages as if they were emails with information on who the caller is, when they called and the length of the message. Numbers can be blocked, sent straight to voicemail or set to hear a personalised message. You can be notified that you have a voicemail by text message or email.