The service will leverage “intelligent network switching” to achieve this
Google Voice is a nifty VoIP calling service that lets you connect with people anywhere in the US and Canada at virtually zero cost. The service has also seen multiple updates this year, including Smart Replies and the ability to place calls with a single click/tap on the web. Google is now announcing an update for Voice which can significantly improve call quality thanks to what the company calls “intelligent network switching.”
As Google mentions in its Workspace Updates blog, older versions of Voice would pick the network when the call is placed and stick with it for the duration, meaning that calls could be dropped if conditions changed. Thanks to the new update, Google Voice will automatically attempt to switch between Wi-Fi and cellular data in the middle of a call if audio quality is compromised on the current data stream.
The feature has begun rolling out to Google Voice customers as of Friday, so it’s likely that many are already benefiting from the performance upgrade. Moreover, there are no admin restrictions on or a specific toggle to enable this feature, thus making it available to practically every customer. This feature is obviously meant for mobile users though the extremely small subset of Chromebook owners using the Voice app will want to report to us on how that experience is.
In most cases with conventional wireless service, callers are able to jump between Voice over LTE and Voice over Wi-Fi mid-flow. While Google Voice is a fairly niche service, we’re actually surprised it took this long to put this feature in place. After all, Google Voice was launched all the way back in 2009.
Earlier this year, the company officially shut its doors on the legacy web portal for Voice, forcing long-time users to finally move to a new one and, in so doing, lose out on a few useful features. While Google Voice has in no way replaced legacy mobile carriers since its arrival on the scene a decade ago, it has served as an excellent supplemental network offering for Google account holders.
