I never got the settlement notification (I never used Beacon) but all FB notifications typically come from a similar address. For example: notification+km-m-d_i@facebookmail.com So I'm really not sure what your point is. If you look up the facebookmail.com domain, it's clearly owned by Facebook.

Well my "data" is based on what I've experienced. I've never claimed anything other than that. I'd love to collect more detailed data on what's going on but I don't exactly have access to Google's servers. Whatever the case, I have read about problems other people are having and the service is far from complete. Believe it or not, but there are actually other people that have run into similar bugs (especially the "can't hear" bug).

Anyway, I can make international calls using my mobile phone without Google Voice and I get connected without trouble. And I can hear the people I call. Connecting to the right person and being able to hear each other are kind of critical for a telephone/VoIP service, by the way.

If Google Voice is merely making use of landlines, towers, etc. then surely it should behave exactly like my mobile phone, right? At the very least people should be able to hear me, yes? I haven't run into either problem with my wireless provider.

Skype works just fine when using my same mobile phone and when calling the exact same international number. So I call shenanigans on your shenanigans.

I was thinking it may actually be an issue with certain area codes. They just recently (by "recently" I mean the past few months) started making numbers available in my state. Maybe something isn't configured quite right for those numbers. But the location called may be the issue too. Whatever the case, it just isn't usable for me in its current form, which sucks. I like the concept of the service.

Verizon Wireless has always been extremely reliable in the past for me. But I suppose it's possible. That said, Skype To Go (seems to have a lot in common with Google Voice) works brilliantly for me when making international calls. So I strongly suspect the problem is on Google's end.

Most of the problems I've had have been with international calls. That's the only time I've had it randomly connect to people I don't know. As amusing as that has been, I don't really want to be making international prank calls...

But the not being able to hear others problem consistently shows up. I've poked around a bit on the official help forums and it seems like other people have had this problem for a while now too. It's very bizarre.

Google has been absolutely worthless when it comes to helping resolve this issue. They just keep giving me credit back. While that's great, it doesn't really solve anything.

What the hell? "Troll?" I'm stating my personal experience with a service and I get branded a "troll." Nice.

[Bender Bending Rodriguez]Neat![/Bender Bending Rodriguez]

This is all very interesting but Google Voice barely functions when calling internationally. And I've had horrible luck with it domestically too.

I've been trying to use this service for a while now and it consistently connects me to random numbers in the country I'm calling (yes, I'm dialing the right number and I'm dialing correctly). When I actually do connect to some random person, they can't hear me 4 out of 5 times (and that's being generous).

When calling domestically, I get connected to who I'm calling, but 50% of the time one of us can't hear the other. Very irritating.

So, until they can actually guarantee that their service, you know, WORKS, this isn't something I'm remotely interested in. Google Voice isn't even close to ready for anything beyond a fun little service to play with.

Mars has an equatorial radius that's almost 2 times that of the moon. That's hardly what I'd call "slightly larger."