Google plans to announce a new service called Google Voice today that assigns users a phone number that consolidates voice mails and text messages from their various phone numbers and stores them in a single location that can be accessed remotely.

Google Voice will also let users make free phone calls over the Internet, and it provides transcription of voice mail to machine-written messages, which can be sent to an e-mail account or a phone. A conference-calling function will allow up to six people to join a single call from different numbers.